


No One's Word and Nobody's Promise

by SongAboutExiles



Series: Things That Stop You Dreaming [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Botheration, Fix-It, Gender Play, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, Multi, Not Among Our OT3, Not an Easy Fix, Rape/Non-con Elements, Slow Burn, Terrifyingly Deadly People Being Very Sweet, Threesome - M/M/M, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 05:41:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 63,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3558182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongAboutExiles/pseuds/SongAboutExiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Harry's life hanging in the balance as Arthur's final 'fuck you' to Merlin, Harry's lover of nearly two decades, Eggsy decides to try and effect a kind of intervention. It goes a bit differently than he had planned, and the future holds promise again even though there are no guarantees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Figured I'd find you here." Eggsy was dressed down in jeans and an uncharacteristically low-key button down. Apparently, good taste was slowly spreading through his whole life, not just when forced to wear a Kingsman suit. 

The room had that pallid, half-quiet that all hospital rooms share, no matter how nice. The beeping of the monitor and the thrum of the ventilator were constant reminders of how still the man in the bed really was. 

Merlin managed a half smile, unobtrusively untangling his hand from Harry's, half hidden by the covers in the first place. "I'm still trying to figure out if I should hate Chester more for keeping him alive and secreted away, or for not letting him die." 

"Yeah, I know what you mean." He folded into the chair on the opposite side of the bed, looking up at Harry's heavily bandaged face. "They still don't know if he'll wake up, or if he does, if he'll still be...Harry, eh?"

"No. No, they don't." There was a world of brutally suppressed emotion in those four words. Merlin was obviously resisting taking the man's hand again--well, okay, not obviously, but Eggsy picked up things. 

"You two been a couple for a dog's age, yeah?" he said it softly, almost like he was afraid of the formidable wrath of Merlin.

"Almost twenty years, if you can believe it." Instead of getting angry or denying it, he simply took Harry's hand again, letting his thumb trail over the dry skin of his lover's knuckles. 

"Bloody hell." Eggsy's eyes widen. "How the fuck've you been keeping it a secret?"

"Arthur knew, but...well, when we started, it was grounds for dismissal. The policy only changed recently, but we'd become very private people by then. Very jealous of our space and our time together. We didn't want attention and bother." Merlin's lips quirked.

"Now that was pure Harry, wasn't it? I can just hear him, going on about botheration." Eggsy couldn't help the grin, and apparently neither could Merlin.

"It might've been, a bit. I wanted to get married when they made it legal." 

"You should've. You coulda talked him round to it." Spy wedding--Eggsy had to wonder what that would look like. "Excuse for a new suit, if nothing else."

"When he wakes up, you should...you should try to persuade him." Merlin's voice cracked, going from a grin to near-tears with the kind of rapidity generally only caused by utter exhaustion. 

"When he wakes up, I will. Maybe I'll even make some cue cards or something. Visual aids." Eggsy tried to steer him away from melancholy and back to smiles. 

"You know he'd love that." 

"Why don't you come and get a drink with me? Then maybe get some rest, yeah? Harry wouldn't want you worn so thin." Working all day, sitting in a chair all night, for two weeks straight. 

Merlin lifted Harry's hand and kissed the palm. "He'll be the new Arthur, when he wakes up." He leaned up to kiss Harry's cheek next, then whisper something in his ear. 

"Good, because Bedivere is a bit of a git." Apparently, Eggsy's proposal was being accepted since Merlin was gathering his jacket and clipboard. He moved with the robotic precision of someone on auto-pilot, not a good sign.

"Always has been. We're not going to that pub of yours where everyone punches people, are we?" With a last, aching look Merlin forced himself to walk out of Harry's room. 

"Got a new local now. Almost totally respectable--the Crow and Strawman, just down the road from Harry's." Surely Merlin knew it, unless they never, ever left the house. _And what a picture that makes._

"Ah, yes. That'll do." 

They're both silent on the ride back into London, until something occurs to Eggsy while walking from the tailor's shop to the pub. "Wait...you weren't living with Harry were you? We didn't steal your house?" 

"No," Merlin shook his head. "I went in and took out all of my things before you moved in, and I'm staying in my flat. Not far from here. I'm barely there, but it makes it a little easier, not seeing him everywhere." 

"I guess that could go both ways. Y'know, familiar things could be comforting." Merlin was such a strange man. A strange and lovely and brilliant one, but strange topped the list.

"No...Not when I keep thinking I hear him, and it's just my fucking imagination. Or when I wake up and he's not there in our bed. Not when a morning goes by without him fussing over tea things in the kitchen." His voice was flat, but that itself worried the hell out of Eggsy.

It was also fucking heartbreaking, was what it was. "C'mon, mate, let's get some pints and some food into you." He opened the door of the pub, which was thankfully low-key, and found them a table in the back. 

Over their first pints, Eggsy thought of something that might get a smile out of Merlin, even though it was bloody embarrassing to admit. "So, funny story..." 

Merlin looked over at him, and Eggsy's mouth quirked in a way that took him from boyishly pretty to devilishly handsome in a heartbeat. "I'm dying to hear it," he deadpanned.

"When I first met Harry, before I clocked he was with you, I had the biggest, hardest crush on him." And wasn't that just ridiculous? Brat like him, stars in his eyes for a proper gentleman.

"So was that supposed to be funny in a humourous way, or funny in a completely mad way?" Merlin fixed him the look that turned his guts to water during the training days. 

"Er. Humourous? Because I'm just a chav, and he's Harry fucking Hart?" Perhaps not the best funny story, Eggsy suggested to himself. 

"Don't sit there and pretend you're not ludicrously attractive." Merlin took a long swig of his pint. "And did you ever try anything with him?"

"No! God, no. I hinted, maybe. I batted my lashes a bit, so to speak. But nothing ever even came close to happening, and when I figured out he was with you, I stopped." _This just went utterly to shit. I'm a bloody genius._

"He wouldn't have brought you home because you're too young. And we don't dally about with anyone we bring home, it's strictly about the sex, and obviously we both care about you too much to hurt you." 

"What?" Eggsy tried his damndest to process that information. "Wait." Nope, not happening. "No, what?"

"Do you think that two men who do the jobs we do, take the risks we do, would just be plain and ordinary in the bedroom? Or maybe you think there's no way we love each other as much as we do if we sometimes fuck other people?" 

"Nah...nah, that's not it." Eggsy drained a good half of his pint. "You said all that, and all I could think was 'damn it, I could have been fucked by Harry AND Merlin?'" 

"God, you're bloody hopeless."

"Tell me something I don't know, because I do know damn well that neither of you see me as a kid anymore." And yes, they were talking about Harry like he was just waiting down the way for them to come home, not like he was in a hospital bed fighting for his life. It was better this way. 

"No. No, you've grown into an exceptional young man. All the more reason we would never have just had you once and been done with it." Merlin had been playing one of his long cons, like the parachute-that-was-in-fact-there. He wasn't angry, just sad that something nice might have been but wasn't.

"Ah, you were taking the piss." Eggsy flashed him a brilliant grin. "I really need to learn to catch on sooner." 

"Harry still falls for it, sometimes." 

The quaver that crept back into Merlin's voice gave Eggsy pause. He leaned across the table, and dared to cover one of Merlin's hands with his. "If you get lonely, or sad, or just...want someone while all this is going on, I'm here, yeah? Don't have to be no strings, and I don't think Harry would mind, do you?"

"Ah, a friends with benefits arrangement." Merlin moved back when the waitress put down his food in front of him. "If I didn't feel roughly as sexual as this piece of cod right now, I might take you up on it."

"If you do...well, you know where to find me." After that, talk turned to the mundane. How were his mum and sister settling in? Yes, feel free to hide Mr. Pickles if he scares the baby, that sort of thing. You spent how much on new clothes and toys for your family?

After dinner they parted ways, and Eggsy extracted a promise from Merlin to indeed go home and rest, rather than sneaking back off to HQ to spend another night in a chair. He'd taken a few steps on his way when a strong hand encircled his arm from behind, and if Eggsy hadn't known it was Merlin from the scent and the size of the hand, the other man could've ended up dead.

Instead, Eggsy let Merlin push him against the wall and frame his body with a hand to either side. The anticipation was a hot, squirmy thing between them in the moments before Merlin's mouth descended onto Eggsy's. As first kisses go, Eggsy could honestly say that it was the best he'd ever had--no awkwardness, no strange angles. Not only did Merlin know HOW to kiss, he LOVED the act. 

Merlin loved it enough to have a melted armful of boy after seconds, lips parting, tongue making room for the stealing of breath and brain and all sense of where they were (in public) or when (still early enough for people to be out). All totaled, the kiss only lasted a short while, a minute, perhaps less, but it left Eggsy more than a bit wobbly and a lot more than a bit hard. 

"That...that was you feeling sexual as fish and chips?" He darted his tongue out to to chase the lingering remnants of the kiss against his lips. 

"I had to know." Simply. 

"Yeah...yeah, I get that." But it made his stomach flip over, and he went for nonchalance. "You liked?"

Merlin must have seen a vulnerable kid, kissed to within an inch of his life, and waiting to see if he was judged good enough, even though that wasn't what Merlin had been talking about. "You are a beautiful little thing, Eggsy." His thumb traced over the boy's lips. "I was testing myself, not you." Softly.

"Did you pass?" 

"I rather think I did. And Harry? Harry is going to eat you alive." So much sweetness, offered up so willingly, like ten million pennies into one wishing well, with 'more more more' the only thing in his mind. 

That last made Eggsy bite his lower lip, nearly getting Merlin's thumb in the process. "God, I hope so."


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy plays true confessions, upstanding citizen, and filthy whore all in a couple of days. It'd be a record, if he weren't a Kingsman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Additional warning: this chapter deals with graphic descriptions of traumatic injury and completely specious google-based medical talk.  
> 

It really was terrifying, how small and frail Harry looked in the hospital bed, how sapped of the charm, wit, and sheer vitality that made him the man he was. Is, Eggsy reminds himself. Is, not was. Because Harry, despite all odds and appearances to the contrary, was improving. It was a slow crawl, but now he was showing much more brain activity, and his vitals were increasingly stable.

All in all, it was a good time for an episode of 'true confessions to the man in a coma.'

Eggsy edged into the chair Merlin usually occupied, and watched the man's bandaged face as he trailed questioning fingertips over the back of his hand, heart twisting in a funny way at how badly he needed Harry to react. There was no reaction, of course, and Eggsy felt it was a violation, somehow, of Harry's dignity and consent to hold his hand when they'd never even...well. It wasn't his place, was it? Not yet.

He settled for curling his now-neatly-manicured hand around Harry's wrist, which was a compromise that felt right. Contact without presumption. "Hey, Harry." Trying not to whisper only made you sound louder, the young man found, so he just spoke normally.

"I don't know how much Merlin's told you about what's going on, so I wanted to come spend a little time with you myself. On my own. Mostly because, Jesus, Harry, I miss the fuck outta you. I miss the way you talk, the way your back is always so straight, your stupid propriety. Fuck, I miss the way you just bust out a sly joke outta nowhere at the worst time so I have to try not to laugh." Eggsy bit his lip hard, and his thumb stroked almost subconsciously over the thin, fragile skin of Harry's inner arm, just below the IV.

"I wish you could hear me right now, because you'd laugh your genteel arse off, but I'm pretty fuckin' crazy about you, Harry. Always was, but I figured out fast that you and Merlin were a thing, so I never said nothing. Merlin told me I was a total git, because you'd probably fuss and bother about my age a bit and then say something like 'yes, please, shall we fuck?' and I woulda been in Heaven, wouldn't I?" He leaned in mischievously and managed to actually whisper. "And so would you, I guarantee it. Not to mention Merlin."

"So yeah, you'd better wake up, and you'd best remember us and be the utterly filthy creature Merlin's described to me, or I might lose it. I know Merlin would. God, you should see how he talks about you, you'd die of embarrassment that anyone loves you that much." Eggsy would probably feel a bit guilty later, but he couldn't stop himself from leaning up in the chair and kissing the barely visible skin of Harry's cheek with a light brush of lips.

"Get better, Harry. We're waiting."

The twitch to Harry's eyelid was probably entirely in Eggsy's imagination.

**  
Two days later, Eggsy was running the parkour course, trying to beat his own record, when he heard Merlin's rather unbearably sensual voice in his ear. "Get down from there, I've something to show you."

With something approaching unseemly haste, Eggsy found the fastest route back down to the grass and leant against a pillar. "What? You'd better be naked." Things still hadn't quite progressed that far with them, so it was extra-cheeky.

Merlin snorted, and the glasses fritzed on. "Much, much better." It was Harry, notably absent intubation. He was still out, but his colour looked healthier and Eggsy could see Merlin's hand cupping his lover's jaw. "Wouldn't you agree?"

"Holy shit, yeah. That's fucking amazing, that is!" Eggsy grinned from ear to ear. Now the doctors were talking about when he woke up, not if.

"Eggsy..." The younger man watched Merlin withdraw from Harry and walk to the window. "They're coming to do the consult for reconstructive surgery in an hour. I...it would be..."

"You want me to come and be there with you?" Eggsy put Merlin out of the misery of asking.

"Yeah, I would like that. If you can...you know." Handle it.

"I can, and I will. You know I will, Merlin. No matter what the surgeon says or what's under the bandages, we've got this, yeah?"

"We do. We...absolutely do." It wasn't that Merlin couldn't handle scars or even disfigurations, it was the idea of the man he loved being hurt so badly, being **used** so horribly, that made his stomach turn.

"Too fucking right. I'll shower and get to the hospital. Don't let anything start without me, yeah?" Because it was that important.

"No, I won't." And with that, Merlin fritzed out, leaving Eggsy with a triumphant smile on his face he couldn't quite get rid of while he showered off the dirt and sweat and dressed in his suit. Some Harry-like voice in his head told him that when meeting with professionals like surgeons, a suit is appropriate and shows respect for their skills.

The thought of never hearing that voice for real again wiped the smile off as he drove over to the small private hospital Kingsman operated undercover. The securest place to get an appendectomy in all of the UK, it was. Or to get your shattered face put back together.

Merlin was already in the room, holding Harry's hand, but Eggsy'd beaten the surgeons, thankfully. "Hey, handsome men. Must be in the right room." He pecked Merlin on the cheek, ignoring the little flip in his own stomach that was a confused mixture of lust and dread and hopefulness. Then he leaned down, past Merlin, and did the same for Harry like it was nothing, or rather, something they did every day. Part of him was wondering if Merlin would get territorial, but he just smiled bemusedly. It was strange, really, how **little** it bothered him. As in, not at all.

"Your seduction scores were never very good," Merlin teased. "That, for instance, was not even remotely smooth."

"Well, way I see it, I got you on the hook already, and if I offend Harry's sensibilities enough he might just wake up to tell me off." Eggsy passed Merlin again on his way to standing up, and this time it was a brief brush of lips against mouth instead.

"Is there a lifetime quota for saying the words 'cheeky git'? And if so, will you warn me when I get close to it?" Merlin murmured.

The team of two reconstructive surgeons chose that moment to enter, along with the, er, Arthur pro-tempore Bedivere. Everyone agreed the position would go to Harry if he recovered. For all Bedivere's petty bureaucratic fuckery, Eggsy had yet to pick up on the slightest vibe that he wanted Harry gone just so he could keep the job. That was something, he figured. Merlin thought it just showed what a good heart Eggsy had.

The surgeons, Doctors Belvedere and Rodgers, were the very best Kingsman money and connections could buy. The fact that they were there at all was a very good sign--it meant that they fully expected Harry to wake up and to be strong enough to go through surgery when he did. Probably several surgeries, if Eggsy's googling could be trusted.

Merlin was introduced to them as Harry's partner, and not in the secret agent sense of the word because the man was not hiding his hand around Harry's, or letting go. Harry would have several litters of kittens at their outing as a couple, but Merlin figured he could deal with it. He wasn't going to be shunted off and kept out of the loop because he wasn't family.

Eggsy just tried to be inconspicuous in the corner.

"Sir, most next of kin wait outside for this," Doctor Belvedere said gently, her small, deft hand patting Merlin's shoulder. "It can be traumatic."

"Doctor, with all respect, not seeing and not understanding is even more so." And besides, he wasn't alone in this. His eyes met Eggsy's across the room, and Eggsy gave him a small, reassuring smile.

She didn't ask twice, and soon the bandages were off and the damage was revealed. Merlin's hand tightened on Harry's, and his mouth became a thin white line. Eggsy took a deep, steadying breath, but he couldn't help the thought. _Thank God, I bet they can fix that._

Valentine's bullet had hit Harry's head just above his left eye, at an upward angle that saved his life. Thank fuck Valentine had never fired a gun before and wasn't accounting for the kick, because the bullet's momentum slowed enough penetrate whole instead of fragmenting. It went through Harry's brain and out just to the rear of the crown of his head.

The neurologists and neurosurgeons told them that it was almost assured that he would retain his memories of his life, up to and including killing dozens of people and being shot in the head, unfortunately, but that he might have some trouble with logic and processing. Something Arthur needs, no doubt, but there was therapy, so much therapy, and Eggsy had every confidence that if anyone could learn to logic again it'd be Harry fucking Hart.

The physical damage was pretty obvious, even to Eggsy's untrained eye: the left eye was gone, already removed during the emergency surgery that saved his life. The supraorbital ridge had shattered, sending multiple shards of bone into the delicate orb. A fourth of his forehead was just...not where it ought to be, and there was a deep furrow into the brain itself.

There was a lot of talk of bone grafts and titanium plates and the latest technology in transplanting entire eyes and not just corneas. Merlin listened intently, even though his eyes never left Harry's face. Eggsy made mental notes of every damn thing they said so he could go home and google every bit of it. Both of them needed to **understand** what was happening to Harry. Merlin had the advantage of already knowing fucking near everything there was to know to begin with, but Eggsy didn't.

"Bollocks to the eye transplant. Just put something in there so he doesn't have to ponce about with a patch like a bad Bond villain. The rest of it, do what you need to do." Merlin spoke with such authority that neither doctor made a bloody peep about his relationship to Harry. He had Harry's medical power of attorney, anyway, if they decided to be arses about it.

They weren't. "Very well. When he's awake and strong enough, we'll begin. It will take an estimated eight procedures to repair all the damage."

"Eight? Fuck." Merlin hated, hated the idea of his lover going through so much. But Harry was so strong, and he would want to be able to walk in the world again, unfettered and unremarked. The doctors and Arthur were both uncomfortable when Merlin bent over and kissed Harry on the mouth, just the gentlest brush of lips. "I'll make sure they don't fuck it up, Harry. Hm? Not on my watch."

Eggsy had to swallow past a lump in his throat as Merlin moved out of the way for the wounds to be repacked and dressed. Merlin was so sweet, in that gruff Scots way of his, so...aware. Aware of everything, of what Harry would want and not want, of Eggsy stewing in the corner, all of it. Harry would be all right, Eggsy was increasingly convinced of that. But would Merlin?

Maybe it was about time to get a little pushy. For a good cause, of course. Always.

**

Eggsy was nervous. He was nervous picking out his clothes, even though they'd be hitting the floor in seconds, so he went with jeans and a tee shirt, with a light jacket. He was nervous about showing up empty handed so he bought a bottle of scotch, worried it wasn't good enough, and ended up giving it to a bunch of revellers on the walk over. Even though he knew he had some serious skills (no blushing virgins here), Merlin had had the best for almost two decades. He was also, come to think, deeply unsure of his plan overall.

However, more than any of these things, Eggsy was so horny for Merlin he thought he might go blind.

They'd spent the past few weeks dancing around the sex, just kissing and making out like teenagers in between long bouts just talking. And that was nice, that was lovely. That was fucking phenomenal because Merlin kissed like sin. Eggsy clocked it, he really did--Merlin was worried, he was exhausted, he was stressed and miserable. But one thing he also was, or so Eggsy would bet real money on, was needy. He'd felt the man holding himself back for the last week or more, stopping the kisses before they got too heated, and Eggsy could see what promised to be an imposing hard-on in the man's trousers. Godamnit, Merlin deserved to get his rocks off in spectacular fashion (and so did Eggsy).

Right, that little internal pep talk got him up to Merlin's door and knocking on it. Seeing the man in the flesh was all he needed to launch himself into strong arms right there on the threshold, swallowing Merlin's question in a rough, hot, desperate kiss. Merlin was blindsided but it took him all of three seconds to get on the same page, kissing back, mindless for once of teeth and angles and the art of it all. He yanked Eggsy inside and pushed him against the door to close it, growling roughly into an eager mouth.

"Fuck yeah," Eggsy growled back, shoving Merlin away and ripping his own shirt up and over his head, throwing it off to one side. He had no shame whatsoever, and his hands flew over the button and zip of his jeans, toeing off his trainers and catching the socks on the way down and in no time he was naked and hard as fucking nails in front of the older man.

Merlin was watching the display, because that's what it was of course, and stroking his obvious erection through his trousers. "You little fucking tart. Come here to get that little arse of yours filled. Can't even wait to say hello like a fucking proper person."

"Fuck proper. I'm fucking gagging for it, and so are you." Eggsy advanced and gripped Merlin's wrist, yanking his hand away from his cock and dropping to his knees. "Wanna finally see this big dick, feel it in my throat, stretching my hole. Want you so bad."

"S'because you're a good little slut. Such a good little whore for me, yeah?" There was a time for sweet, sure, but Merlin clearly was on board with the desperate thing right now. That was the only reason his hands shook a little as he planted one in Eggsy's hair and used the other to free his prick for a waiting mouth.

"Yeah, and Jesus fucking Christ, I was right," Eggsy moaned. Thing was like a goddamn billy club and all he could do was strain against the grip in his hair to get it in now. Merlin wasn't going to deny him, allowing the younger man to open up wide and suckle at the impressive length and run his tongue over the exposed head.

A little press forward had Eggsy literally gagging, but their eyes locked and Eggsy lunged forward a little more _yes, please, more more, want it_ swallowing and choking a little and generally being the completely obscene little tart he was. Merlin let him get away with it for a little while, rewarding the boy's efforts with a steady stream of cursing and moans and growls, until he pulled Eggsy off by the hair. "Fucking hell, that mouth...is your arse half as good?"

The thickened accent, the strained control, it all made Eggsy want to spill right there on the tasteful hardwood floor. "You stare at it enough, what d'ya think?" His mouth was swollen, chin shiny with spit, and he used the back of his hand to wipe it away as he rose to his feet. He barely cleared Merlin's chest before he was being pulled back into another one of those damned devastating kisses.

Pulled back in and manoevered to the settee without any further ceremony, dumped right on the arse in question. Merlin retrieved the emergency lube from the drawer in the ottoman and looked at the sprawled boy, starved and half-savage. Later, he'd probably wonder what Eggsy DID to him, but he wouldn't care one whit. "Spread it open for me, legs nice and wide."

Oh, Eggsy was a limber boy, and he folded himself almost in half, legs splayed and hands going to his round arse cheeks, tugging them apart even as a deep red flush spread up his chest. "Yeah?"

Merlin actually groaned, "Fuck yeah. Such a pretty, pink little hole." And he'd bet it tasted so good. Since tonight was not about denying his whims, he dove in, mouthing the puckered flesh, then licking and sucking and slurping almost frantically.

So many nerve endings, concentrated so densely, and every single one of them coming screaming to life...Eggsy cried out brokenly and tried his damndest not to just come all over himself. It was nasty and perfect and hot as fucking hell. He pushed down to give Merlin what he wanted. Access.

The older man's tongue pushed in with an obscene, muscular hunger, tasting and fucking and forcing Eggsy to open up in the best of all possible ways. All of his considerable focus concentrated on that one point of connection between them, until he became aware of Eggsy chanting desperately, "Fuck me, fuck me, oh for fuck's sake fuck me, please, please..."

Merlin barely remembered to slather lube messily on his hand and push two fingers inside, tongue moving out and his wild eyes meeting Eggsy's, equally undone. "How much more you need, boy?"

Eggsy was so open from the rimming that he took those two fingers like a goddamned champion slut, clenching and releasing around them. "One more finger, now...you're fucking huge..." Even as far gone as he was, Eggsy wasn't going for outright pain. He was rewarded with that third finger, and it was a perfect stretch. "Oh god, oh god, Merlin, do it...put it in me, fuck..."

Merlin answered with one stingingly hard slap to Eggy's right arse cheek, which only got him another stream of pleas and mewls while he squirted lube over his prick and rubbed it in with a few cursory strokes. Eggsy had to stifle a howl by biting Merlin's shoulder when the man finally pushed in, not stopping until he was balls-deep in the boy's glorious arse.

"Fuck, fuck, Eggsy.." Merlin was quivering with the need to TAKE and take and take until it turned the corner back round to giving again.

Eggsy had never felt anything like it, like if he looked down he'd see the outline of that dick against his belly, like it was gonna come up the back of his throat. It was agony, it was purest ecstasy...it was everything.

"Take what you want," he snarled at Merlin, bracing himself with his thighs around the man's strong shoulders, hands gripping bruisingly hard at Merlin's forearms.

The words barely left his mouth before Merlin started to fuck him. He angled his hips for that perfect position, but it was pure instinct. There was nothing thoughtful or intellectual about this. It was a cataclysm. Neither of them were going to last, but lasting wasn't the point. The point was shoving themselves together into one messy, artless, perfect whole.

Eggsy couldn't even feel embarrassed that he lost it first, spurting over his belly, Merlin's belly...fuck, even up to the other man's chin. It turned him inside out, wrecked him, felt like it was never going to stop, until he knew that him coming on Merlin's face was the final fucking straw and he felt the older man fill him. His hips were all stuttering jerks, just rutting mindlessly, until his whole body was shaking with it and he collapsed down onto Eggsy's equally spent body.

In the end, Eggsy wasn't surprised that it was him running comforting hands up and down Merlin's broad back. He wasn't surprised when the rush of endorphins released two months of pent-up pain and terror and desperation and he ended up with a sobbing Merlin on top of him, still buried inside.

He was a bit surprised at how the whole experience cored him, right to the marrow of his bones. He'd walked into this profound love affair at the most strained moment imaginable, and now it was done, finished. He was in love. Twice over, all at once. Merlin's sobs HURT him, wrenched something inside just like seeing Harry helpless and small in that fucking bed. By god, Eggsy was gonna take care of both of them, protect them, and yeah, that sounded fucking daft. Two brilliant and deadly men, and his little chav arse was gonna keep 'em safe? Fuck it, he would.

After Merlin wore himself out, Eggsy lifted the man's face and looked into swollen, lost eyes. "Merlin, love, you're gonna be okay. So is he. I promise. I just need you to do somethin' for me right now, yeah?" Merlin swallowed hard and managed a nod, half-humiliated at losing it so comprehensively and half-relieved that Eggsy was there to catch him. "Go on to bed, ok? I'm gonna get a few things, and then I'll be right there. Not leaving ya, yeah?"

"R...right." Words. Merlin could remember his words. He could even remember to pull out gently and ask, "You all right, sweet boy? Didn't hurt you?"

"Ah, Merlin...no. I wouldn'tve ever thought fucking could be that incredible in my wildest wank sessions. I'm so beyond good." He hid a little wince, which was a delicious aftershock to him but would probably upset Merlin, and sat up to kiss the man gently. "Now, go do what I said."

"Bossy." But Merlin was getting slowly to his feet and crossing to the stairs, gripping the bannister on the way up like a lifeline.

Eggsy watched him to make sure he didn't fall over, then went to the kitchen and drank a huge glass of water, getting another for Merlin. He followed the older man upstairs and located the bathroom, cleaning himself up a little and bringing a warm cloth and some paracetemol to his new lover, who was curled up and watching his progress. "Take these and drink some water, okay?"

When Merlin sat up to follow instructions Eggsy did a quick and dirty clean up. By the time the pills and half the water was gone he was finished, and he pushed Merlin gently into the bed before following and taking the bigger body into his arms. If Merlin felt odd curling into Eggsy to sleep, he didn't care enough to move.

In the end, sleep looked a lot like like unconsciousness, and they were lost so deep they didn't even dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are amazing. Thank you for commenting and kudo'ing!


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy and Merlin can't seem to make it out of bed. Merlin gives good manicure, as it turns out. This is a purposely vague summary.

When Merlin opened his eyes, the bedroom was still pitch black. Even after his eyes adjusted, it was dark enough that he could barely see the end of his nose. Everything smelled like sex, he was warm. The arm around his shoulders wasn't long enough to be Harry's, and the chest his cheek was plastered to wasn't broad enough. No, even in the dark Merlin knew it was Eggsy. 

Surprising, delightful, lovely boy.

No strings, Eggsy had said, like he'd deserved no better, but there were. There were strings now, Merlin felt them, and they had hooks at the end that caught in his heart. Well, alright, his heart and places south. Merlin wasn't much of a bottom, but in the dark of night when he woke tangled up with someone he loved, there was something magical about that sleepy, warm connection that did him in. 

He lifted his head and kissed a path along Eggsy's throat to his jaw, as his fingers slid down a flat belly to find the younger man's heavy, relaxed cock. There was a slow, secret thrill to stroking it, with just the pads of his fingers, until it hardened in his palm and Eggsy's eyes fluttered open and Merlin could feel more than see the smile.

"Nnngh...'M a little too sore to go again right now..." His voice was sleep-rough and pleasure-rough and it went straight to Merlin's gut. "Happy to suck your cock again...mmm..." By now he was fully hard, filling Merlin's hand nicely. 

"No, sweetheart, that's not what this is," Merlin whispered, just as roughly. God, he didn't need to be bloody serviced. What utterly shite lovers this beautiful boy must've had. "I want you in me. Just like this." 

Eggsy was still mostly asleep, but that got his eyes flickering open, one eyebrow climbing. "Yeah?" 

"Yeah." Merlin scooted over on top of Eggsy till he could reach into the side table for lube, catching the boy's mouth on the way back in a languid, messy kiss. "Just wanted to hear you say yes, wanted to kiss you..." And yeah, those two things could be a bit mutually exclusive at times. 

"Yes," Eggsy murmured into his mouth. "Oh, yes."

Merlin slicked up his fingers and kept on kissing while he worked two in deep, his cock, hard against Eggsy's belly, twitching with the invasion. On the whole, he was a bit surprised how much his body seemed to want the boy, how fast he opened, spasming around his own fingers at the idea. Opening up for this sweet kid was punching buttons only one other person in the world knew existed. 

Eggsy's hand slid down Merlin's back, fingertips resting just above where his own were moving, stretching. "Ah, Jesus, Merlin...That feels good, yeah?" The boy could read it in every jerk of Merlin's cock against his flesh, in every little slick of precome. 

It'd be so easy to be flippant, to snort and roll his eyes, but in the darkest hours, with Harry, with Eggsy, Merlin just didn't have it in him to put on an act or go all aloof. "Yeah...but you'll feel better."

"Next time, I'm doin' this for you, working you open for me, or for Harry," Eggsy whispered, bending in to kiss him again, finding the lube in the covers and slicking his cock. Presuming a lot: that there'd be a next time, or that it could be Harry, curled up behind Merlin, kissing along his shoulders and neck, kissing Eggsy, while the boy's fingers delved deep...

Maybe it wasn't presumptuous at all. 

In fact, it was such a pretty picture that Merlin had to stop that line of thought by kissing the mouth it came out of, deeper and a little more insistently than before. He crawled up over the boy's narrow hips, and was still kissing him when he lowered himself down and took him inside. Eggsy's hands cupped Merlin's arse, holding him still to adjust, to just...feel it. This was as new for Eggsy, this quiet, almost reverent coming together, as it was completely normal for Merlin. 

After a few long moments where neither of them trusted themselves to speak, Merlin started to move, rocking his hips slowly and with a lithe grace that few would suspect he owned. His eyes were locked to Eggsy's, barely visible in the dark, so he was surprised when the small, strong hands left his arse to gather up the covers and make sure they were pulled up, around Merlin's shoulders, so that he wouldn't get cold, so that their little cocoon wasn't invaded by anything approaching the real world.

It showed that Eggsy got this, that he understood exactly what Merlin wanted--to be cradled, to be warm and safe and take pleasure in the darkness. 

Those strings bit deeper, and the hooks tore in harder.

Good god, he might actually be in love with this little thing.

"Stop thinkin' so hard," Eggsy murmured against his lips, hands returning, one to cup the back of Merlin's head, the other his hip, and he figured out that raising his knees gave Merlin the perfect position for just rocking on his cock.

So that's what Merlin did. It was sweaty, slow, almost inexorable except that Merlin didn't give either of them the rhythm they needed to find their orgasms. Eggsy took that like a trooper, not one noise about 'please' or 'more', just a never-ending series of gasps, and yeses, and whimpers, all of them against two sets of reddened, slick lips. 

Neither of them could say how long passed before they both started to falter, their honeyed rhythm stuttering. Eggsy was trying so hard not to beg, but the sneaky little thing worked a hand between them, curling it around Merlin's cock and stroking in time to motion of their hips. "Wanna feel you when you come; wanna feel you around me," he whispered, and it sounded more like a prayer than it did dirty-talk. 

And who was Merlin to deny a prayer?

His hips went still when the orgasm rolled over him, and even though he barely made a noise it left him shaking, shivering despite the warmth when a slightly more vocal Eggsy followed him down, filled him up. For long moments neither could move, or maybe neither really wanted to move. The world was right here, even if there was a hole in it. 

"Is it weird that I can almost, almost feel Harry here?" Eggsy whispered shakily.

"Objectively..." How Merlin managed a big word, he had no idea. "Yeah. Except I know exactly what you mean." He finally shifted off Eggsy's cock, curled up right where he'd been when he started. They were a disaster, but neither cared enough to disturb the boundaries of the unpleasantly cold and lonely world outside the bed.

"What would he say?" Eggsy was already sleepy again, and it felt almost like he was asking for a bedtime story even when curling his arms protectively around Merlin. 

Merlin huffed a soft laugh. "Everyone shut up and go back to sleep, the buggering bloody alarm clock'll go off in two hours." 

It made Eggsy laugh, and yet it was perfect. He could almost hear it in Harry's voice. "You mean he's not a morning person? Seems like he'd spring outta bed every morning already pressed and polished." 

"Harry? God, no. Oh god, no." The thought of his sleep-rumpled beloved, adorably cranky and hungry and ill-sorted every single morning made him laugh again.

"That makes two of us, then, you poor bastard." Eggsy kissed his forehead, then promptly tightened his arms and fell back asleep.

**

"I've been doing a lot of soul searching, you know. Don't give me that look, yes, me." Merlin flicked his eyes up to Harry's face, hoping for a 'look' and not getting one as he trimmed the thumbnail on Harry's right hand oh-so-carefully. Now that he'd outed them, he could do all of the things for Harry he'd been dying to do, like making sure his lover didn't wake up with ratty cuticles and unshaven. Not much to do about his hair, but that would sort itself quick enough. He'd even brought some of Harry's soap and half-begged, half-bullied the nursing staff into using it for his baths. 

It was going to be hard enough for Harry to wake up and look in a mirror without looking like some ragged street urchin. Speaking of...

"In some ways I feel like a colossal git for assuming you'll be okay with Eggsy. You're going to wake up with so many challenges, and I went and added to them. But I feel that I know you, to your bones, and I know that you were interested in him, I would go so far as to say enchanted by him, even before all of this." He finished Harry's right hand, then went back with cuticle trimmer, big hands deft with the small tool. 

"It's a huge bet, my love. I rolled the dice on your behalf. But he's mad about you; when he thought you were dead I saw him, he was shattered. I filed it away because I was having my own...issues...and was too busy trying not to implode right along with the whole world. You know, a tiny voice in my brain was saying the whole time that without you, with you dead, I should just let. it. burn." Merlin's eyes looked up again, and he rose up to kiss Harry carefully on the mouth. "Because without you, there's no world I want to know."

"Anyway, Eggsy...he's surprised me. Thoroughly. I would never have guessed what a huge, loving heart he has, although I'm guessing that's something you knew about him. He's taking care of me, Harry. And he's sitting here with you, when I'm not, and he gets on the nurses just as much as I do, but they don't listen to him as much."

"We just don't want you to wake up without anyone here. So, you know, don't go doing it at 4 am or anything, the boy's making me go home and sleep properly." He smiled, finishing the whole hand before rubbing in some moisturiser. "Because when you do wake up, you're going to run us ragged. I can't wait, love. I can't wait to be run ragged." 

Gathering all his things, Merlin moved around the bed to do the left hand. "I had sex with him last night. Feels like a confessional in here, even though you know approximately how religious I am. We were going to wait till you woke up and were there, but I have to admit, I was at one hell of a low point last night. Had been hanging on by my fingernails for days. Eggsy knew it, I knew it, and so he pushed. Hard. Not to 'blame' him or anything, god."

It was nice that he had something to keep his hands busy, or they'd be shaking, like Harry was going to wake up just to yell at him. Well, he'd take it, honestly, but it wouldn't be his first preference. 

"It was the kind of shag that's so bloody spectacular it breaks down your walls, and I ended up crying all over the poor boy. Yes, me. Crying like a damned baby. Cried myself out. All of this, with you, finally got it all out. So here I am, doing your nails, telling you everything, and feeling like you're really going to wake up and we're all really going to be all right." 

"Because oh, Harry, I love you. Love you so bloody much. You can know a thing, have it be part of your life, woven into you like your DNA, but then someone tries to yank out that thing, like they're pulling your cells apart, and then you see it. You feel it. It's a pain that I hope you never, ever know. Never. I hope that we die together, old and a total embarrassment to Eggsy when we're still snogging in public." 

"Which was a terribly long winded way to go on for ages about how much I fucking love you, you bastard." 

"...Love you, too...wanker."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're all wonderful. Continued thanks for all the support for this fic!
> 
> ..yes, I know I'm a terrible human being for breaking the chapter there.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's awake (and how), Merlin makes a fairly big relationship mistake, and Bedivere really is a git.

//Get here now. He's awake.//

**

Finally. Harry was exhausted just from the fight, from the sheer effort of forcing out words past a dry throat, across chapped lips. He was dimly aware of a massive, throbbing pain in his head, but acutely aware that he could smell his lover, could feel the shaking hands laid on his cheek, hear the stuttered breaths and the choked-out words. "Oh, love, oh thank god. I'm here, Harry, it's me, I'm right here."

Raising the arm he wanted to put around Merlin, to pull him close and comfort him, was unfortunately a bridge too far. 

"...don't...feel so...right." To put it mildly. When he tried to open his eyes, one refused to do anything at all (except hurt), and the other eyelid was stiff and heavy, the eye itself slow to come to focus. 

"Love, oh god..." Merlin's mouth on his, just for a moment, and Harry wanted to say how much he wanted a proper hello kiss, he'd been lost in the wilderness for so very long. But again, bridge too far. "You're perfect. You're fucking perfect, don't you worry..." 

Sounded like nonsense, the kind that people tell you when you've had your foot blown off or something, but oh, don't worry, they make lovely prosthetic feet these days. 

It took Merlin those few seconds to realise that he really ought to call the nurses, the doctors. That he should do something on his phone ( _Texting Eggsy_ he knew it somehow, and the thought made him want to smile) while they all swarmed over him, taking readings and asking questions that, really, he'd just woken up from a coma but of course he knew what bloody year it was and who the goddamned PM was, the bastard. He was comatose, not a moron. 

Some vague sorts of things happened in quick succession: the nice nurses pushed some pain meds through his IV, the blessed angels, that helped the throbbing, and they even gave him a little button in the hand he couldn't see. They washed his face and used something to make his eye less sticky, but made him acutely aware of the bandages covering his face, and...

"Oh fuck, I got shot in the head. That fucking bastard." 

Merlin, clearly out of his depth and yet shushing the doctor who started to explain, bought himself a moment to think by shoving a straw into Harry's mouth. Oh, lovely, wonderful cool water. It was amazing, and he drank three whole sips before it was rudely removed from him again. "Yeah, it was Valentine. We...Arthur made us think you were dead. But you weren't. And yes, you have a lot of bandages, but we're gonna get you fixed up now you're awake."

That was...sweet but unsatisfactory. "Um...doctor?" The real story, if you would be so kind?

The doctor ran through the list of injuries, starting with why he couldn't see through his left eye ( _bugger_ ) to why his head hurt so bloody much ( _buggering FUCK_ ) and ending up with how fantastic it was that he was awake and strong because they could start the reconstructive work ( _bury the lede, why don't you._ ). 

"So...not the eye, ob...obviously. But the rest? Fixable?" He won't have to look like Quasimodo or anything?

"I'll leave it to the reconstructive surgeons to go into the details with you tomorrow, but from what I understand...yes. They're very hopeful." The young doctor smiled, and was rather pretty now that she'd thought to come round to stand next to Merlin where he could see her. 

"Thank you. Now...may I have more water and some time with my...Merlin?" He dimly recalled something like Merlin declaring insistently that they were a couple and how they should all listen to him, dammit, and yet the word for 'Merlin' was still 'Merlin'. He was simply his essential self. 

"Of course, Mr. Hart. We'll be in later to make you more comfortable and get some of these machines off of you." And with that she left, taking the rest of what must surely be the whole bloody floor's worth of nurses ( _was there a pool of some sort?_ ) with her. There may have been some 'aww's' which was utterly mortifying. 

He managed to turn his head a little to see Merlin better, shocked to see his beloved crying. "No, no...don't...I'm alright, see?" Somehow Merlin's hand had insinuated itself into his, and he managed to squeeze it as hard as he could manage. "Please don't cry." 

"I'm...I'm happy, Harry. The happiest I've ever been in my whole damned life so let me cry if I want." He kissed the back of Harry's hand, then his cheek again, rubbing his own against it like a giant cat. They were both dog people so Harry had no idea what that was all about.

"You told Eggsy to come?" Harry found himself wanting to look around for the boy. Must be those endless confessionals they'd both gone on and on with. Seems like Eggsy should be here for this. 

"Yeah, he's on his way. Probably driving like Satan himself." Merlin hitched a hip onto the edge of the bed and stroked Harry's cheek. "God, you're a beautiful sight." 

"You're an idiot. Valentine shot off a chunk of my face. More water?" 

"Just don't gulp it. They said small sips." Merlin held the water for him, and there were several sips in the end, enough to cool the burning in his throat quite a bit. "And you are beautiful, you have no idea how...we never knew if we'd ever hear your voice again, and here you are calling me an idiot." 

"Mmm. You're an idiot, my darling love." Was that better? For some reason, he really had no idea. It was disconcerting. 

There was a sort of skidding noise as Eggsy rounded the corner outside the room and ran inside. "Harry!" 

The boundless enthusiasm made Harry smile, and even more than Merlin's tearful reunion it made him feel...hopeful. "Can't see you on that side." 

"Oh, bloody hell." He came around the end of the bed and stood next to Merlin, but not too close. "Better?" 

Eggsy was wearing his suit, and Harry had the sudden urge to reach up and touch him. Just...anywhere, really, just to reassure himself that the boy was both real and somehow undamaged. "You two sit...fill me in. First, how long?" How much of his life had he given to Kingsman this time?

"Nearly three months," Merlin answered, keeping custody of his hand. Neither one of them would disrespect Harry by lying to him. "Three long, miserable, fucking terrifying months." 

Fuck. "How am I still alive. That bastard shot me in the face." Which, really, was typically the grand finale. 

"I'll take this one," Eggsy said. "Valentine was such a piss-poor shot he bollocksed it even at point blank range. His arm jerked and the bullet sort of skidded over your skull, lost some momentum, and stayed whole while it plowed through your brain." 

Harry thought about that for a moment. "That...was quite...vivid. Thank you. Water, please?" After a few more sips he managed, "Tell me someone killed that motherfucker." 

"Your boy right here shot him in the face right back." Merlin quirked a real smile for the first time as the adrenaline started to wear off. 

"And I didn't half-arse the job. There was brain everywhere." Eggsy tapped the center of his forehead in illustration of where he took his shot. "Felt pretty fucking fantastic. I was so shattered over you being gone that I just didn't give a shit." Not that he did now, since it was a memory he was grinning at, and so was Merlin, who helpfully added, "So many heads blowing up, it was sort of majestic, really."

_My lovely little psychopaths._

"I suppose Arthur grabbed me off that asphalt in Kentucky and brought me back here, but he didn't tell you." Kept you angry, kept you focused. Conniving old fuck that he was. 

"Look, love, I don't want to bombard you with every single fucking thing that's happened since you were shot. You only just woke up." Merlin lifted his hand, kissed along the knuckles, and Harry caught a longing glance from Eggsy. Poor lad. 

"You make a...fine point." Harry managed to wave the little morphine button around a bit. "I shall have more of this. You two go home and sleep." And then, as an afterthought. "Together."

Eggsy blushed to the roots of his hair. "I guess you heard stuff, then." 

"I heard everything," Harry replied, as gently as possible. "Go home with Merlin." 

Merlin took the boy's hand in his free hand, holding onto it fiercely. "I'll make sure of it, love. God, it's amazing to hear your voice." He bent over and kissed Harry's lips, then his cheek, then his forehead. "I love you so much." 

"I know you do." Harry punched the button, just as Eggsy darted in to follow up with his own kiss to Harry's cheek. "I'll be here first thing with him. Want to hear everything they say." 

"Mmm. Now go home. Go." He vaguely shoo'd them toward the door and let the morphine do its job. Funny, sleeping properly was nothing like being in the coma.

**  
The trip to Merlin's was quiet, Merlin still so rattled that he even let Eggsy drive. Eggsy paid him back by not driving like quite such a maniac. At Merlin's, he stopped at the threshold. "Look, I know what Harry said, but if you'd rather just go to sleep..."

"I'd rather just go to sleep with you. Get on in here." Merlin was tired enough that his already-dubious charm had preceded him to bed. It still worked, because Eggsy sidled in and took off his suit coat, hanging it in the hall closet and leaving his shoes there as well. 

"I can put the kettle on, if you want." Eggsy hated feeling so unsure of his footing, but Harry was awake now. All the theory was now practice, and it was still so new he felt like he was tromping around their lives like some kind of...well, like some kind of chav in big, secondhand Army boots. So he went for the value-add approach. 

"Sounds lovely." Merlin seemed to be on autopilot again, only it was far too late to steer him out for some pints. Maybe tea and a sandwich...he smiled when he found the makings for simple cheese sandwiches. Living with his mum, he'd become good at what either or Merlin or Harry would probably call 'the simple cuisine of his people.' 

Plus, rattling round the kitchen gave him something to do with himself, and a few minutes later he emerged with a tray bearing a pot of tea, and sandwiches cut into neat fourths--a habit he'd acquired feeding his sister. "Here we go, figured you hadn't eaten, either." 

Merlin, pacing the living room with pent-up excitement, stopped and sat. "You're right, I didn't. Thank you, Eggsy." He took a cup of tea and a section of sandwich, and was soon hoovering down the food like a starving man. 

"Nah, it's just cheese and pickle. Nothing to thank me for." Not like he'd cooked a multi-course meal, this was just life. You did what you did, you made the tea, you did the washing up, you went to the launderette. Life..He was just glad to do it for someone he cared about so much.

"On the contrary. I have no idea how you always seem to know the right thing to do." Merlin left off the sandwiches and sat back to drink some tea. 

"I guess...I do alright taking care of the people I care about." He shrugged and got his own piece of sandwich while the getting was good. 

"Talk to me, I don't like how you're sounding." Now that he wasn't starving and frantic, Merlin was a tad more perspicacious. 

"It's nothin'. I just...he's awake now. The offer you accepted was...I told you it was no strings and I meant it. If you don't want to be with me no more, that's okay." Eggsy put the sandwich back down again, hunger suddenly fled. 

"So you think, after last night, after everything we've been through together these past weeks, I would prefer you just evaporate from my life? From Harry's life?"

"If it'd make things easier for you both, then...yeah. I guess. I would, I mean." Eggsy fiddled with his half empty teacup till he finally just put it down, feeling like he was on the edge of a yawning chasm without a parachute. 

"Eggsy." Merlin moved the tea tray out from between them, and scooted in close enough to snag the boy's hand. "Bollocks to easy. What we have means something to me, and you heard Harry--he heard everything you told him, and I can imagine what all that was, and he still told you to come home with me. If you don't trust my word, trust his." 

"I trust both of you." _Here's my whole heart, please don't shred it to bits._ "I want to stay." No matter what it takes. 

"Good. Good, because I was going to possibly sit on you all night if you said you were leaving. Let's go up to bed, yeah?" Merlin stood and held out his hand. Eggsy was a little embarrassed at how fast he took it, how hard he held onto it. 

They left the tea things for the morning and managed to hold onto each other the whole way up the stairs. Unfortunately, there was no way to get undressed without letting go, but in moments they were under covers that still smelled of last night's sex. Merlin kept shifting and practically vibrating, and Eggsy knew it was all the leftover nerves. Only one cure for that. 

"Lay back, yeah? Try and relax." Eggsy pressed a kiss to Merlin's lips, sighing rather sweetly when he was admitted for something deeper. "Let me help." One of his clever hands slide down Merlin's flat belly to curl around his cock, stroking gently but firmly as they kissed. The heavy flesh hardened rapidly, and soon he couldn't even get his small hand around it and resorted to corkscrewing motions to cover the surface. 

"Fuck, Eggsy...your hands are incredible," Merlin whispered raggedly, all of the tension of the day pooling right there in the pit of his belly. 

"Mmm, but that's not all you're getting," he whispered back, like some kind of TV pitchman offering that extra set of steak knives if you call right away. He slotted himself between Merlin's spread thighs and made himself comfortable in a loose crouch as his mouth replace his hand, jaw relaxing to take in as much as humanly possible. Or nearly inhumanly, in Eggsy's case. Even so, there were a couple of inches he couldn't possibly reach, so he used his hand to squeeze and stroke there as he set a rhythm designed to please, to get Merlin there with no teasing or bullshit. 

"Oh god, Jesus Christ, that mouth..." It was burned into his sense memory from the night before, because the boy was just that good, his throat opening and squeezing and swallowing around his prick as he set a smooth pace.

Eggsy felt warm with the praise, and it only made him try harder, go faster, do whatever came to mind to please Merlin more. The fingers of his other hand cupped the man's heavy balls, squeezing gently and then pressing into the flesh behind, right over his prostate from the outside. 

Then there were only wordless, ragged breaths and his name and some curses that would make even him blush in any other setting and then Merlin was convulsing in a hell of an orgasm. Eggsy swallowed as much as fast as he could, then let the spent flesh slide from his mouth, wiping the leavings from his lips with the back of his hand. 

Turned out, Merlin needed that more than even Eggsy had known, because now the man was heavy and sated and already mostly asleep, holding out an arm for Eggsy to crawl in and put his head on Merlin's shoulder. He was hard, but it didn't matter. This wasn't for him. 

"You...you need anything?" Merlin asked sleepily. 

"Nah, I'm good. Just one of the many services I provide," he murmured, trying to turn it into a joke and failing miserably. 

Merlin snorted and tugged Eggsy in closer before he fell dead asleep. It was a long, long time before Eggsy could say the same. 

**

Merlin woke up to an empty bed and a note. "Arthur called me in at the fuckin' crack of dawn. Probably just wants a lecture. Meet you at hospital. --E." 

"Ugh, that bloody git." Eggsy was probably right, he'd probably violated some ridiculous rule or other that warranted a stern talking-to. He showered, changed, checked in to make sure everything was covered at HQ, then went in to find Harry sitting up in bed, demolishing a pudding cup with somewhat unsteady hands. 

"Good morning, love," he said, without nearly the strain of the night before. "They spent most of the wee hours getting me sorted, and I even went to the loo on my own. Well, with support, but on my own." 

The small victories of convalescence. 

"You look fantastic." Merlin stole a vanilla-flavoured kiss and hovered by the bed. 

"This button is my best friend. Sorry to break the news to you like this, but you've been supplanted. Where's our boy?" 

"Arthur called him in early for some kind of lecture or other. He'll be here soon." Merlin took the dead cup away from Harry, who frowned, and then took his hands. 

Just then, Merlin's glasses came to life with Arthur's most unwelcome visage. "Merlin, great news about Harry. Pass him my regards. By the way, I wanted you to know that I sent Eggsy out on a mission this morning. Terribly important, couldn't wait. Don't fret, I have Percival shadowing him, so he'll be just fine. Well, I'll leave you to it, shall I?" And with that, the man was gone. 

Merlin had no idea why Eggsy being sent out surprised him so much, why it left him feeling hollow and strange, just like when Harry used to be sent out into gods know what. "They sent him out, Harry. No idea when he'll be back." He mechanically folded up the glasses and put them away. 

"Bloody fucking hell. Their timing is always shit." It was true, they had a knack for sending Harry out on his birthday, Merlin's birthday, their anniversary, Christmas, you bloody name it, but now they're extending that courtesy to Eggsy, too. 

"All a part of being Galahad, I expect. He has a lot to live up to." Merlin sat close to Harry, trying to parse the conflicting feelings.

"So I'm not Galahad anymore...that isn't much of a shock." But it still makes Harry sad. 

"No, as soon as you get yourself together, you're Arthur." 

"I think you need to start with everything that happened after I got shot." 

"I guess to start with...Arthur is a dead traitor, and you're the new Arthur. Bedivere is filling in till you're on your feet."

"Ugh, really?"

"Fraid so."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the continuing support. I'm out of town for the next week or so, but I'm sure I'll come back with a notebook full of ideas and itching to write the next chapter. Again, we end on kind of a cliffhanger, so I apologize. <3!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things get sorted, some don't, and Eggsy learns a bit more about this 'assignment.'

“So you see, it’s really very simple, just…distasteful,” Percival said, faintly embarrassed to be having this conversation in the first place.

“I have to try to look ten years younger, let a dirty old man seduce me, and then steal the contacts from his mobile because Kingsman thinks he’s selling knowledge of where to buy enriched Uranium via Kazakhstan. Can I just use an amnesia dart on this fucking pervert and be on my way?” Eggsy was feeling faintly nauseated.

“The fucking pervert is allergic to the main chemical agent in the darts, I’m afraid, and we need him alive and clueless for as long as possible.” Percival may have been a dreadful priss, but every agent has had this variation of a mission, or something like it, and he had the good grace to acknowledge how hard it was.

“And no one’s noticed that an Oxford don is diddling the boys he’s ‘mentoring’?” It was sickening, and Eggsy felt substantially more than faintly nauseated the more he thought about it. Always some asshole, he thought, waiting to fucking take advantage of anyone younger or more vulnerable. How many times had his stepfather demanded a blowjob when his mum wasn’t there to service him? Same thing, just a higher class of disgusting creep.

“Look, Galahad, I know how hard this is. Believe it or not, I was once young and pretty, too, so I’m not just talking out of my arse here. It’s the job, and you must have understood that on some level. We don’t teach you seduction skills for nothing.” Percival floundered. “There’s always counseling available after…”

“Bugger counseling, bunch of horse shite.” Eggsy thought of Merlin, of Harry, and of how fucking much he didn’t want anyone else to touch him, pretty much ever, and wasn’t that a revealing thought? “Just…tell me that if it ever comes to it, I’ll get to kill him.”

“That day may be quite far in the future, I’m afraid. He’s terribly useful, and when we have a back door into his mobile we’ll be gaining a great deal of intelligence from him.” Percival had the good grace to look as disgusted as Eggsy felt.

“So that means no turning him in to the cops, either,” Eggsy stated flatly.

“No. No, we can’t do that.”

“I never thought I’d say I hated this job…”

“We all say it, when we have to bend over for arseholes like this,” Percival reassured him. “It gets better. Easier.”

“Bollocks, it does not.”

“No, but what am I supposed to say? Sorry about your impending buggering? They don’t make a card for that.” Percival stood and swiped all the information on the mission to Eggsy’s clipboard. “You have a day to get ready, you’ll be inserted at the school at first bell tomorrow.”

A day was enough to go through the costuming department, get himself looking even younger, and then pay a visit to Harry and Merlin to try to apologise for being a dreadful whore when all he wanted was to be faithful.

**

Merlin had arranged to get a couple of days clear of his duties to spend with Harry now that he was awake, to learn about the PT regimens, to sit with him during all of the tests to determine his brain function. To be a spouse, basically. They’d scheduled his first surgery for the end of the week, and he’d been assuming that Eggsy would be done and back by that time. It was interesting, to say the least, how much he’d come to rely on the younger man’s rock solid presence.

Eggsy was more like Harry than either of them would admit.

"You're thinking about him, aren't you?" Harry asked, a fond glint in his eye.

"Just hoping he'll be back by Friday. He's good in a crisis. Well, obviously, but personal ones as well." Merlin looked faintly guilty at being caught out.

"If you please, kindly do not refer to my impending surgery as a 'crisis'." Harry would have lifted his eyebrow but that just hurt too much.

"You get to sleep through it, you lucky bastard. We get to sit around and fret." Much like the last three months.

"You're quite in love with him, aren't you?" It was a soft question, asked as if to prevent an epic sort of grand denial. 

"I'm rather afraid so. But you must know, tell me you know, that if you want it done, it's done. You before anyone, you know that." _Please tell me you know. Because that was easy to admit but rather harder to live with._

"I know that, Merlin. Our Eggsy is rather intensely loveable. And besides, I heard what you both were saying to me." 

"What was it like? And what did Eggsy say?" Merlin was terribly nosey, must be a spy or something.

"It was like being lost in a snowstorm in the Arctic...I could hear your voices, very faintly at first, but I found if I clung on and listened very hard I could follow them. I was cold, and alone, and those voices..." Harry trailed off, his own voice cracking round the edges. "Well, they saved me, didn't they? And as far as what Eggsy said, it was a lot like what you were saying. That he was mad for me, and that he missed me, and that he hoped I wouldn't be angry." 

There was another long pause, but Merlin knew he wasn't done. "One thing I especially remember is...he said I would be embarrassed to hear you go on about me, how much you love me." Harry looked over at Merlin, then, and that was that. Merlin was kissing him, come hell or the head nurse. He leant in and pressed his mouth to Harry's, gently at first, but when Harry grabbed him by the back of the head lips parted and tongues met and it was like coming home.

Merlin was shaking when it was done and Harry slumped back into bed, exhausted. "Not bad for a half-dead, disfigured cripple, if I do say so myself." Harry managed a half smile that was rather self-satisfied. Merlin was flushed and flustered and obviously erect in his trousers. 

"See what you do to me...even when you're a half-dead, disfigured cripple?" he whispered, leaning down to brush his mouth over Harry's one more time. 

"It's probably very bad that I want to watch you get yourself off. I mean, how indecent, me in a hospital bed, half-dead and everything." There was that wicked glint in Harry's eye, the one he'd missed so much.

"We've probably done it in more indecent places and at worse times..." Merlin pressed down on his aching dick with the heel of his hand.

"Name one." Harry was desperately tired, but his mind was thoroughly engaged in his lover, and his lover's obvious need. He reached out and vaguely swatted away Merlin's hand and touched the heavy flesh through the fabric with the pads of his fingers. 

"Jesus...okay, I can't right now. Not with you touching me." Even if it was barely touching, it was Harry, and no part of him could resist the man under any circumstances whatsoever. 

"Then show me. If the nurse comes in, I'll tell her I was having a raving delusional spell and you were just placating me." Harry bit his lower lip and moaned in triumph when Merlin unzipped enough to draw out his cock, sitting himself down on the bed with his back to the door. 

"This is still a terrible idea." And yet, Merlin shuddered when his hand surrounded his prick, stroking hard and fast, the foreskin pulling back and forth over the swollen, slick glans.

"Fuck terrible, want to watch you come for me." Again, after too, too long. 

Which of course made the perfect cue for the charge nurse to come bustling in, Kingsman clipboard in hand. Harry smoothly covered Merlin's crotch and changed conversation like the pro he was. "Marian, I was just telling Merlin that I believe I prefer the butterscotch pudding to all the others, and that lime jelly is unclean and of the devil."

She checked the machines and spared barely a glance at the bed, though the tips of her ears were pink. "I think I'd have to agree with you on both counts. And I think I'll turn your heart rate monitor off for the next, er, ten minutes or so." She did exactly that, and bustled right back out the way she came.

"That woman is an angel of mercy," Harry declared, yanking the blanket down to find a not-particularly-diminished erection. He wrapped his fingers round it and stroked; even though he could only manage a few times, it was enough to get Merlin back to the edge.

"You are utterly shameless." Which was entirely possible, but it didn't stop Merlin from taking over where Harry left off. "Fuck, this is so wrong..." 

"Wrong like fucking a kid twenty years younger than you?" Harry grinned ferally. "With an almost painfully tight little arse and a filthy mouth begging you for it?" 

"Oh god...you're evil..." Evil, but not at all incorrect. "He's a fucking spectacular little whore, just like you, love..." Merlin was already on the edge, shaking and stroking hard and fast. 

"And of course you've imagined the three of us together...I rather like the thought of you buried in me balls deep while he rides my cock," Harry murmured, eye glued to the desperate motion and ears drinking in the hoarse, muffled noises as his lover came hard, spilling into his fist and trying to make sure that nothing got on the covers for the nurses to find. 

"I...oh fucking Christ...like that variant a good bit, too," Merlin whispered back, leaning down to press his forehead against Harry's. "I love you. So bloody much." 

"If you don't mind terribly, I'm going to have to pass out now for a bit. Mm. But I love you, too. Always." The morphine hit hard and then Harry was out, leaving Merlin smiling to himself as he cleaned up. 

**

It was evening when Eggsy slipped back into the room. Both Merlin and Harry had to look twice—his hair had been lightened, curled, lashes lengthened, and he was dressed in a school uniform. It was Harry who immediately caught on to the ramifications of their boy looking like a teenager when he said, simply, “Fuck.”

“Yeah. Hey there, handsome men.” Eggsy edged in, a little bit embarrassed at how much he looked like jailbait. “How are you feeling, Harry?”

“My head hurts, but I seem to be doing rather well. Unlike you. Come here and tell us about it?” He patted the side of his bed, putting him next to Merlin in his chair on the side with the good eye.

“Why do you look like a…” Merlin grimaced as he clocked to it. “Oh. Fuck, indeed.”

“Apparently that’s the assignment.” Eggsy carefully slid into the vacant space. “Fucking.”

“Oh, well, just pop him, her, whatever with an amnesia dart and they’ll think they had the time of their lives.” Merlin sounded more hopeful than assured.

“We both know it doesn’t always go that way,” Harry answered, taking Eggsy’s hand. “You wouldn’t look so miserable if that’s all it was, would you, love?”

“No…apparently, this fucking paedo at Oxford has a taste for buggering boys that he’s taken under his wing to prepare for life at uni. Best and brightest, you know. He’s got valuable information, and he’s allergic to the darts.” Eggsy looked down at his hand in Harry’s. “And you just called me ‘love’.”

“Rather beside the point at the moment, Eggsy.” Harry squeezed his hand surprisingly hard. “So you’ll have to fuck this bastard. The first cut is always the deepest. I was once young and pretty, and I was the one getting all of these assignments. Well, Percival and I both got our share. After Merlin and I got together, do you think it got harder or easier?”

Eggsy looked at Merlin and then back to Harry. “Harder, would be my guess. Before I got…I dunno, involved with you two, I would’ve just gritted my teeth and done it and then got blackout drunk after. Now, now it’s just fucking awful.”

“It got easier for me.” Harry looked at Merlin, still with the stars in his eyes after all those years. “Because after awhile he was there, in my ear, and I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that when I finally came home he would take it all away.”

“And he was right.” Merlin took Eggsy’s other hand, lifted it to kiss the knuckles “Don’t let yourself forget that we’re right here. We’ll be here when you come home, and you’ll be alright. In fact, I’m going to make damned sure of it.”

Eggsy honestly had no idea what to say. These were revelations and he’d just slunk in here to say his goodbyes. “What the hell have you two been talking about? And what do you mean you’ll make sure of it?”

“We’ve been talking about you, and us, and what I mean is that Percival isn’t your handler on this anymore, I am. I’ll be with you.” Merlin spoke with a grim finality.

“Nah, no, you need to be here with Harry, and I don’t need you hearing or seeing what I’m gonna have to do.” The generosity of the offer was nearly too much to bear.

“He’ll still find time to see me, and this is important. I’ll worry much less with Merlin handling you. He’s done this for me, too. He’s bloody brilliant at it.” And not just Harry. If you had to do a honey trap, you generally wanted Merlin in your ear for it. He didn’t get embarrassed or judgey or act all British, he just supported you through it with his quiet, quick-witted confidence.

“So…does this mean that you want me to stick around, Harry?” Eggsy had one hand held on either side, and being the focus of these two brilliant men was overwhelming him.

“It means I want to try. I want very badly to try, even knowing full well how hard it will be.” Harry smiled at him, expression gentle. "But you know...as long as you trust us, believe us, I don't even think it'll be that hard at all. You are, as I told Merlin earlier, an easy person to love."

"And you're all over-emotional, remember those tests?" Eggsy couldn't quite wrap his head around this optimistic pod person who'd abducted his grumpy Harry. 

"Okay, so maybe it will be a biblical clusterfuck. But one thing you need to know is that I trust Merlin, and Merlin trusts me. That didn't just happen. For us, love came before that kind of trust, and we had to work it out. For instance, at first, Merlin was painfully jealous of the targets I was sent out to seduce." Harry looked over Merlin somewhat reproachfully. 

"Until I swallowed my pride and actually shadowed him for one. Then I wanted to crawl through the earpiece and take the fucker apart. I never thought for a moment after that, no matter how beautiful the mark, that Harry was 'cheating' on me." Not one of his finest moments, and Merlin could admit that, seventeen-odd years later. "And Harry thought he was..."

"Merlin, don't...just...not right now, alright? We're supposed to be buoying up our boy here, not taking him on a tour of the murder house that was my life before Kingsman." 

Eggsy was curious of course, but somehow he knew that he'd hear about it eventually. "You don't haveta drag out the dirty laundry--I think I get it. Merlin will get me through this, and I'll have to work hard to gain your trust, to be on the same footing. I actually sorta figured that last part. Not like I can expect to just waltz in and be one of...of you." In a way it was like the Kingsman job interview in his mind, a bit.

Merlin gave him a look, conflicted, clearly, but something else. He was struggling to find the words and Harry wasn't helping. "Never think you're less than. Please. That's not what this is about. God, we're bollocksing this horribly."

"Nah. Nah, you're both lovely. And you're honest. And I get it. I do. I don't get the keys to the kingdom just cos I'm spreading my legs. I shouldn't, that would make what you have cheap, and it's obviously not." Eggsy shrugged, not even noticing the point that was flying over his new blond curls. 

Harry sighed. "Eggsy, come here. You're small, you'll fit." He scooted Merlin and patted the bed, keeping at it till Eggsy had curled himself into the tiny space in the crook of Harry's arm. "I would like very much to kiss you. Would that be okay?" 

Eggsy felt like a kid on Christmas morning (the kind where, ostensibly, one doesn't hear that one's father has died), sandwiched in close to Harry, face tilted up. "Yeah...god, yeah, just...you gonna hurt yourself?" 

"No, now come here." He tucked fingers under Eggsy's chin and lifted him up for a kiss. It was excruciatingly sweet, tender, gentle. When lips parted, it stayed that way, except for the bone-deep shudder when Eggsy's tongue touched Harry's for the first time. The kiss made him feel warm down to his core, safe and even loved, like when he and Merlin made love. 

At some point even the most exquisite kisses have to end, and there were stars in his own eyes when they parted. "Merlin, kiss this young man at once." It was a command given with a smile, and it was followed at once, almost before Eggsy had caught his breath from the last. Merlin's kisses were always like licks of fire, and this was no different even though the fire had been carefully banked. Harry watched them, watched the interplay of tongues and lips and the soft noises, like it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen in his life. 

Eggsy was practically vibrating when Merlin finally released him, and then he offered with a tentative tone, "Now you?"

The kiss that followed held a deep familiarity that Eggsy couldn't even envy--he just looked forward, with all his heart, at being able to kiss them like that someday. When he'd earned the privilege. What he was watching was beautiful, and hot as hell, and he hadn't a clue that each of them had thought the same thing in turn when Eggsy was kissing Harry and Merlin. It was captivating. He might even go so far as enchanting.

After they parted, the intimacy lingered, a long, slow moment with three people trapped in a bubble. Outside there were machines and lime jellies and horrible old men to bend over for, but in here? In the bubble there was peace, and Eggsy felt for the first time that he'd get through this assignment with his sense of self intact 

**

"You have your schedule? Pocket money? Condoms?" That last was a hopeful addition to Eggsy's satchel, but you never know. Sometimes you could get a mark to use one. 

"Yes, Merlin, Jesus. I've done this once, you know." And quite well, thank you very much. "I'll just keep my head down until the special assembly at three." It was easy to talk to Merlin in the press of kids moving into the school; everyone just assumed he was on his mobile. "You're sure he'll pick me?" 

"Your record is stellar, you're a real renaissance man, and you are by orders of magnitude the most beautiful thing I've seen in this whole school. We can't guarantee, but I'd bet a lot of money on him choosing you. You've even overcome the death of your father in combat at a tender age. It's right there, hook's baited." Merlin had constructed the background flawlessly, and Eggsy had soaked it in. Or Edward, rather. Mister Robson, to the instructors, who never had anything but glowing things to say.

Then the day passed uneventfully for both of them. Edward had to stand up and introduce himself as a new student, but his background and constructed shyness kept him out of the fray to a large extent. Lunch was spent in new kid exile, which was better than new kid taunting and teasing, and then shortly it was time for Doctor Wright to meet the boys who were hoping to gain his patronage. Everyone knew that the don's proteges were always accepted into the very best colleges at Oxford.

There were only ten boys at the special assembly, which was really nothing more than an informal gathering in the headmaster's office. Eggsy squashed his nerves to jelly, and listened intently. They were each to step forward for questioning, and he'd been well prepared for the kind of things that were likely to be asked. He performed an assessment of his competition, with Merlin echoing his thoughts through the earpiece like they were psychically linked. 

This one was too gawky, that one was too dumb, three more were just bland and uninteresting. There was maybe one boy who could offer real competition, but he came from a swank background and had two loving, attentive parents who would probably notice if their son were suddenly being molested. That left poor Edward, the kid with one overworked parent and no siblings. 

Doctor James Wright, a physicist, was at the same time exactly what Eggsy had expected and nothing at all like what he'd imagined. The overwhelming connection in his brain was, "Oh fuck, he reminds me so much of fucking Arthur, the fucking traitor." 

After listening via earpiece to the man go on for a few moments, Merlin cut in. "I want to kill him on general principle. Stay focused, Edward."

Edward did indeed stay focused, looking up at the man from under his lashes shyly (and provocatively) while answering his questions flawlessly. His tongue touched his lower lip a couple of times, and he was, in short, advertising his charms hard enough that even a blind man could tell he was lonely, shy, brilliant and gorgeous. A virgin ripe for the picking. 

In the end, Wright made the same call, and all of the other boys filed out. "There, young Mister Robson, congratulations. You have everything it takes to succeed in my program." 

"I'm honored, Sir. Really, my mum will be so thrilled when I tell her. I won't let you down." He was all smiles and shy exuberance. An intoxicating combination, apparently, because Wright invited him on a tour of his college that very afternoon. 

"If you think your mother will allow it," Wright added, watching the answer a bit too hard.

"She doesn't even get home from work until ten, Sir. It'll be completely fine with her." Edward shouldered his satchel and followed Wright to his antique Jaguar, making the appropriate sounds of appreciation for the coolness of the man's car. 

"Must flatter the jackass," Merlin muttered in his ear. 

During the brief car ride, Eggsy studied his mark. Roughly Arthur's age when he died ( _when I killed him, the bastard_ ), broad shouldered and heavy-jowled, like a bulldog stuffed into a tweed suit and set on two legs. Okay, that was enough studying the man; he was going to make himself sick and then where would they be?

Wright explained self-importantly that they would have a grand tour of the college, then take their dinner in the hall with the dons and students. He had special dispensation for bringing his guests to table, Edward was to understand, so it was vital he be on his very best behaviour. Edward drank it all in, answering question after question with a polite 'Sir' and even opening doors for the man. Eager to please, no father figure. Desperate for attention. That was Edward, alright. 

Dinner was a bit intimidating, but Eggsy and Edward could be one in that respect. It was meant to intimidate, to make the boys feel off-foot and awkward and like they had to stay very close to Wright to avoid missteps that would embarrass them both. 

Merlin just made snarky comments in his ear about Wright, the other dons, and the student body. He even had something to say about the quality of the pudding. It really did a world of good at soothing anxious nerves. 

After dinner, Eggsy was somewhat disappointed to see that Wright was intent on 'grooming' him, rather than just going for the bloody dick. It meant he was stuck here, while this asshole assured himself that Edward wouldn't run to Mummy about the professor with the bad touches. Eggsy made absolutely sure that Edward said the right thing at every juncture, moved into every casual touch like a lapdog craving a master's hand. He even intimated that there was something 'different' about him that was causing him anxiety, and saw Wright immediately jump to the conclusion that the 'difference' was that Edward was gay. Brilliant touch that, Eggsy thought.

Finally, at half past nine, the first night was over. There had been innumerable little touches-that-weren't-quite-fondles, innuendoes, and leading questions, and Eggsy was exhausted but restless when he was dropped at the counsel flat where he and his mum supposedly lived. He'd have to stay there for the duration, and it felt like a prison. 

"Hey," Merlin said in his ear, just as he flopped down onto the couch. "I have someone who wants to say hello." Moments later, Harry was in the glasses, waving at him. 

"Merlin said you should get a BAFTA for your performance today. I'm proud of you." 

"Tell him that means a lot to me," Eggsy answered, flushing with the praise. 

"I can hear you myself, Eggsy, for god's sake," Harry sighed, shaking his head minutely. "We're not playing telephone." Now that was more Harry, and it made Eggsy laugh. 

"This guy, Harry. God, he reminds me of Arthur, and it's..." 

"Fucking awful," chorused from three mouths at once. 

"Exactly. I mean. Really, I was prepared for this, but he's so fucking odious and self-important and the way he's grooming these kids is disgusting, and we can't do a fucking thing about it." Eggsy wriggled till he'd stripped off his jacket, tie, and unbuttoned his shirt. A very hot shower was in order. 

"Who said that?" Merlin asked.

"Percival. He said we need him free and on the outside, not rotting in jail for being a paedo." 

"That man is so literal-minded. No, we can't get him arrested, but we can give him enough of a scare that he'll bloody well stop. What if Edward's mum found out?" Harry grinned over the glasses. 

"And she bribes the living hell out of him and says that she'll go to the authorities the second he misses a payment." Eggsy picked up the ball and ran with it.

"He'll be too scared to try it again. He's a coward after all, that's why he preys on youngsters like Edward." Merlin rounded it out. 

Suddenly Eggsy thought that maybe, just maybe, this might be worth getting filthy for after all. He bid them a reluctant good night, and then took that very hot, very long shower before crawling into a very empty bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you are all wonderful! Apologies in advance for the next chapter. :-/


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy faces more than one moment of truth, and Harry starts reconstructive surgery. WARNING: There is graphic non-con for our poor Eggsy in this chapter. If you want to avoid it, look for the long lines of asterisks. Never fear, there is also unrepentant and well-earned schmoop.

*************************************************  
Why did this fucker like to kiss? Eggsy must have wondered that ten times in the last hour alone, since Wright had started in on him. It was his fourth afternoon, and the old bastard had finally found the balls to pull his student down onto his lap and kiss him. It was..slimy. Decidedly slimy. Enough so that Eggsy's subtle squirming wasn't faked at all--it was just more an exercise in EWWW than boyish nerves. 

_Really, I'd rather he just fucked me with this insignificant little prick of his. Strip me naked, paw my skin, touch my dick. That shit'll wash off. This kissing business won't._ Out of sheer irritation, he ground his firm arse against the man's cock, and made an 'Ohhhh' noise like it was a total revelation to him. God, as if.

"Ugh, the noises, Galahad. Can't you move him off the kissing?" Merlin sounded a bit short as he murmured into the earpiece, but then again Harry's surgery was first thing in the morning and he was here shadowing Eggsy while a filthy old creep stuck his tongue down THEIR Eggsy's throat. 

"Professor..." Eggsy moved back from the man's mouth and licked his swollen lips provocatively. "Are you sure you just want to do this? It's lovely, but...I've seen some pictures, and I know there's more we could do." He sounded quite the breathless ingenue.

"Have you been looking at dirty pictures on the internet, you naughty boy?" Wright's smile turned nasty. "I can't have that, Edward. I want you to pull down your trousers and pants and lie across my lap."

 _Fuck, great move, Unwin. And it had to be a spanking. It just bloody well had to be._ Spanking was the one kink he had that ran so deep and was so twisted up with badness that he denied even having it. 

It was bulletproof.

"Shit, Eggsy, I'm fucking sorry," Merlin offered, feeling like rather an ass. The fact that Eggsy couldn't answer him didn't help. 

Eggsy managed a fearful look and took down his trousers and tight briefs right in front of Wright, stripping them all the way off as a little bonus for the monster. "You're not going to send me away are you?" 

"No, don't be silly. You're such a pretty boy, so bright and promising. But I can't have you tainting that mind with internet pornography. Now come along." The man patted his lap, but not before taking a long, long look at Eggsy's waxed-completely-smooth body. He moaned when Eggsy settled his weight across his thighs, and Eggsy sort of wanted to die. Just a little. 

With the first blow, limp and weak like everything else about the man, landed, Eggsy shuddered as his own cock thickened. He tried everything in his arsenal to keep from getting hard, but the more force Wright summoned, the worse everything became. Eggsy found himself rocking his hips against the professor's legs, whimpering under his breath.

"Jesus, is he really hurting you or are you...fuck." Merlin was pacing his control room, arms wrapped around himself. "It's okay, Eggsy. It's okay. We'll get through this together, yeah? Sometimes, you just can't help it, and that's alright. I promise." 

Eggsy focused on Merlin's voice and let Wright keep going till his arse was bright red and his cock was dripping onto the other man's fucking tweed suit trousers. "I'm so sorry, Professor. So, so sorry. How can I make it up to you?" he snivelled, hating the sound of his own voice. Even he wasn't sure if the tears in his eyes were Edward's, Eggsy's, or both. 

"There is a way." Wright's beady eyes fixated on Edward's hard prick when he crawled off the professor's lap, watching it bob up and down. "Get on your knees, pretty boy, sweet boy. I want you to use your mouth." 

_Yeah, this right here would be humiliation. Christ._ He scurried to obey, kneeling prettily between Wright's thighs, his face red and wet, the blush scarlet down to his nipples under the shirt and tie he still had on. "What now, Sir?"

Now, of course was the big reveal. It was convenient how Wright could ignore the fact that his supposed 14 year old's dick was more imposing than his by, well, a lot, and just whip out his hard prick like Eggsy was supposed to be impressed. He could sure pretend to be, and that was what counted. 

"Sir, do you...do you want me to suck on it?" His eyes were big and disbelieving. _I'll never manage it, really! Truly, you have a huge cock!_

"Yes, I very much do. Just watch the teeth, and everything will be fine. You're such a good, good boy, Edward, and I want this so badly." 

Eggsy's stomach turned over as he leaned in, closed his eyes (even though he knew keeping them open would have a more arousing effect), and sucked delicately at the tip. The taste was foul--somehow it always was when he was doing this against his will, and yet delicious when he wanted it--but he eased more into his mouth and bobbed up and down, only going halfway down although he could have easily taken it all. 

There was an odd sound in the earpiece, and Eggsy let himself try to figure it out while he pleasured Wright. Finally he got it: Merlin was grinding his teeth. The "Mmhm?" he hummed out around Wright's prick was enough like a moan to please the old man, and enough of a question that Merlin picked up on it.

"Want to rip his fucking head off his shoulders with my bare hands," Merlin growled low in his ear, brogue thick. 

Now that, Eggsy thought, was what sex should sound like.

This was so far from Eggsy Unwin's best blow job it was ludicrous, but for Edward Robson it was downright impressive. He had the old man grunting and coming in his mouth in minutes. Minutes that felt like hours, but were, objectively, still comprised of only 60 seconds each. 

He sat back on his heels and looked up at Wright, thankfully now unburdened by his unwanted erection. "Was that all right, Sir?" And more to the point, would he be able to keep down the contents of his stomach?

"Oh, my sweet boy, it was simply delightful. You were perfect!" To Eggsy's everlasting horror, Wright gathered him in for a bear hug, as though that was just a perfect first blowjob between lovers. He had to fight for breath. 

More importantly, he had to get this creature to fuck him so he'd have an excuse to get at the phone always kept securely buttoned in his right shirt pocket. If he didn't get out of here soon, one of two things were going to happen: they would have to literally scrape Wright off the walls, or Merlin and Harry would have to figuratively scrape Eggsy's sanity off the floor.

******************************************

Later that night in the empty little counsel flat, Harry and then Merlin, both looking worried, popped onto the glasses for their nightly check-in and bitch session. "Hey, handsome men, you're a sight for these sore eyes, and that's the truth." 

"Are you all right?" Harry asked, brow knit in a way that had to be aggravating his perpetual headache. 

"I am so fucking sorry," Merlin said, almost at exactly the same time.

"I was right as rain after I stuck my fingers down my throat an' got rid of what that fucker left behind and then took a blistering shower." The first part was a lie, but the rest was true. "Merlin, what the hell are you sorry about? If you hadn't been talking to me, I would've just killed him." 

"I...that...thing that happened..." Merlin looked at Harry, and that's when Eggsy had the startling realisation that Merlin hadn't actually told Harry any details. Well. That was unexpected but rather lovely in a perverse sort of way. 

"You can tell Harry, Merlin. For the record, you can always tell Harry," Eggsy's tone was gentle. 

"Tell me what?!" Clearly they were worrying Harry more not telling him than telling him, so Eggsy recounted the whole ugly story. He even managed to stammer and falter through the spanking bit. 

"So...yeah. I'm kind of a twisted little fuck, and I shoulda warned you both how fucked up I am." Eggsy studied his own hands instead of looking at Harry and Merlin.

"Because you get off on being spanked?" Harry looked at Merlin, confused. Merlin was no help. 

"Eggsy, that's...I mean, as kinks go...it's one we can definitely accommodate. It's nothing to be ashamed of," Merlin ventured. 

"What if I told you my stepdad used to fuck my face and then spank me and laugh when it turned me on?" There, out with it, and let them see what a freak he was.

Sure enough, both were speechless. Not with any disapproval of Eggsy, but with mute horror and rage that caused words to catch in their throats. "We would tell you that your stepfather is a dead man," Harry murmured, softly but succinctly. If he'd had an inkling in that pub of what the man had done...

"And I would tell you that if you wanted to explore that side of you in a safe and loving environment, we would be happy to try to help you through it. If you'd rather put it in a box and never even think of it again, we will never, ever touch you like that." Merlin's hands were clenched helplessly in his lap. 

That was more, so much more, than Eggsy had ever expected after airing one of his deeper, darker secrets. Protectiveness? Caring? How'd he get so lucky? It was enough to make him rub his eyes against the stinging of incipient tears. 

"I don't think I deserve you. Either of you, much less both." Eggsy was ashamed of how his voice shook.

Before Merlin could offer a retort, Harry beat him out. "I know you don't. You're just going to have to bloody well get used to the idea. And if we have to tell you ten times a day, we'll do it. If you have to have a few tantrums to test us out, feel free. Because Eggsy, we're over here wondering how on earth we deserve you." 

"I can't...wrap my head around this right now." Because it was like Harry was actually speaking some other language in an alphabet no one had ever taught him. "Just...before we talk about Harry's surgery tomorrow, can I ask you both a favour?"

"Anything," Merlin replied.

"Don't...don't ever call me your 'boy' again," Eggsy whispered, so softly they both had to strain to hear him. 

"Jesus. No. Never again. You know we never meant it like he did, please tell me you do." Merlin looked horrified, and Harry somewhat unsurprised at the request. 

"I know. God, yeah, I get it. I just can't hear it again, is all."

"You won't. You have our word," Harry declared. "Essentially, what we all need is for this assignment to be over, and for you to be in our arms again where everything makes sense."

"After the surgery tomorrow we get moved into one of the private convalescent suites. Queen sized bed, no monitors once he's out of recovery..." Merlin started. 

"...Basically heaven," Harry finished. "As close to our own bed as can be." 

"That sounds pretty wonderful. Think we can all fit if we're really careful?" Eggsy knew that Harry would be fragile, but surely a bit of a cuddle wouldn't be too much.

"I'm counting on it," Harry answered, giving him a smile that could seriously charm the pants off a fella. 

**  
Eggsy left their chat to collapse for the night, and Merlin turned to Harry. "Bloody hell." He didn't have to take his lover's hand because he'd never let it go in the first place. 

"I blame myself for not seeing it. You never met his stepfather, but he is a piece of work. I thought merely boorish and the kind to get off on terrorising women and children, but I failed to add rapist to the list." Of course Harry blamed himself, it was his default pastime. "I failed Eggsy and I failed his father."

"Bollocks. How many times do we have to have this conversation?" Merlin was exasperated, more because he himself didn't see it. What Eggsy was going through now was bad enough, but on top of an abusive childhood it could end up devastating him.

"Apparently at least once more." Harry rubbed his hand over the unbandaged part of his face, exhausted but knowing that even with the morphine he would have trouble sleeping. 

"Right. You are not omniscient. You are not Superman. You are a human being and you can only do so much. Stop thinking you're some negligent deity; it's distasteful." 

"That didn't even help."

"I know, but I've got it memorised so let me use it when I want." Merlin was as tired as Harry, and since they were coming in before dawn to take him in there was no way he was going home. 

"Are you having second thoughts, now that we know all this?" Harry asked the question softly, and he was fairly certain he knew the answer, but assumptions, etc.

"I didn't give up on you, and I'm not giving up on him," Merlin replied, just as quietly. "I seem to remember a beautiful young man who thought he didn't deserve to be loved. Who thought there was nothing in him to love."

"And I remember the grumpy Scot who changed his mind." Harry lifted Merlin's hand and kissed his wrist. "I was hoping you'd say that. And I really am going to kill that bastard, the moment I'm able." 

"World will be a better place. He's probably already moved on to a new woman, new children to use and abuse." 

"Find out for me, would you? Keep an eye out for him."

"Yes. As far as I'm concerned, he's practically public enemy number one." Merlin leaned over to nuzzle at Harry's ear. "You worried about tomorrow?"

"I'd have to be mad not to be, wouldn't I?" And damn Merlin for exploiting one of his sweetest spots. It was positively indecent to feel that stirring low in his belly, with him a half-blind cripple and all. 

"I am, too, but you're going to be fine. Better than fine. I have to believe that." The nuzzling turned to a light press of teeth against Harry's earlobe. "Because god, I miss you. In the biblical sense." 

"Keep doing that, and you won't have to miss me anymore. I'll pull you right down here and have my way with you." Harry sighed and felt the tension drain from him as he tilted his head to give Merlin more access. 

"Do you think you could? If you could, my head is going under those blankets this instant." Those words, in that tone, right in his ear...yeah, there was no mistaking the interested jerk of Harry's cock. "Even if you couldn't, god, I'd suck on that gorgeous prick of yours just to feel it on my tongue." 

"God knows I don't want to say no to that..." But the business with Eggsy was just too offputting, too upsetting. 

"I know. I think I'm trying to distract myself from what happened today." Merlin backed off with a last little lick and rested his head on Harry's chest, where the other man could stroke gently. 

"At least you never have to listen to me having sex again," he whispered. He may not be the young pretty boy, but there were still plenty of scenarios where his looks and charm got him in deep. 

"This sunny-side-of-life thing is really creepy," Merlin said, his words muffled against blankets. "How many more times am I going to have to listen to Eggsy? How many times can he do this without breaking?"

"We don't run a whore house," Harry admonished. "And I'm the new Arthur, don't forget. I can set some changes in place regarding these kind of assignments--psychological fitness, preparedness, more training in how to use the darts to make the mark think he's had a fuck when he hasn't. There are ways to make sure actual fucking is very rare." Harry stroked Merlin's head, then rubbed at the tense spot at the top of his spine. "It's just this professor, this asshole, who's punching every one of our Eggsy's buttons."

"Ahhh...Jesus, yes, don't stop." Merlin was still a tense mess from earlier, from what was going to happen to Harry in the morning. "You are going to make a fantastic Arthur, even if you're a pod person with a happy disposition."

"Perhaps they'll fix that." 

"Perhaps I like that you're happy." Merlin smiled up at him. "I don't love you **because** you're a grumpy bastard, you know."

"Well, I'm sure I'm eternally thankful for that."

**

When they came to take Harry away, Merlin hid his worry with teasing, familiar comments that spoke of years together. Harry, for his part, claimed a kiss in front of the doctors, nurses and God, heedless of what anyone thought or could possibly think. 

Merlin watched Harry being wheeled off down an impossibly long white corridor, and battened down the hatches for what would be the longest eight hours of his entire life. Cutting up bits of his beloved to make other bits and then reconstructing the bits they cut off--it all sounded mad even though he grasped the concept thoroughly. Enough so that when Doctor Rodgers came in halfway through to give him an update, he demanded it in technical terms and responded in kind. 

The surgery was only supposed to take four hours, and his stomach dropped when he saw her until she told him it was good news. Harry was strong enough for them to keep going, and the fewer times they had to put him under general anaesthesia the better. After badgering her for every detail, Merlin acquiesced and then settled down to wait it out. 

He only hoped that Percival was taking good care of Eggsy today. That was an impossible situation on every level. Part of him hoped the consummation of that tawdry, revolting affair was put off till he could be there with Eggsy. That part acknowledged, too, that meant another day of Eggsy suffering over his pawing attentions. And so another part of him hoped it would just be over today, because it meant their lover would be home all the sooner. 

****************************************************************************

The school days were always uneventful. Eggsy kept his head down, did lessons that seemed ridiculously easy to him now, and ate by himself. He wasn't exactly loved by the students who lost out on the prestigious 'mentorship,' but then again if they only knew what they'd avoided they'd be Eggsy's best friends.

Percival had been briefed on the events of the day before--it was as unavoidable as it was distasteful--and he stayed mostly quiet on the earpiece all day. At least as long as it took to get through school and to Wright's house. 

Eggsy feigned excitement quite well, really. "I was thinking about yesterday all day today!" he enthused (not exactly a lie) and was rewarded with (naturally) a kiss. _God, what I wouldn't do for a proper kiss from my men._ His men. Yeah, he needed to get back. With no way to know how Harry was doing, or Merlin, he was in a right state.

"Oh you were, you naughty boy?" Wright was clearly pleased, and reached around to grope at Eggsy's still-tender arse. "I thought you were a natural."

"Oooh, I'm glad you think so, Sir," Eggsy breathed. "I'd do anything to get into uni, to do well. And...do you promise you won't think I'm too wicked?"

"I can make no promises, but you're too sweet a boy to ever be wicked. Tell me." The groping became an insistent cupping and squeezing motion. 

"I liked it," Eggsy admitted, letting the blush that wanted to appear do so, and spread down his neck. It was a fetching look on him, or so Merlin had said more than once. 

"Not too much too fast, Galahad," Percival murmured in his ear. "You'll go overboard and sink."

Of course Percival was right, but that didn't mean Eggsy had to like it. "I hope that doesn't upset you." As if it could, with the man's hands halfway up his arse through his trousers.

"No, no...not at all, dear boy. I was hoping you would. I have such grand plans for us, you know. There is something very special about you that I simply must have." Wright slid one hand around to paw at Eggsy's crotch, and he tried to at least get semi-hard for the man. 

"Don't say it, Galahad," Percival warned, and Eggsy sighed inwardly. But it was SUCH a good segue to bat his lashes and murmur 'my virginity?'. 

"I'd let you have anything, Sir," he said blissfully, arching his lithe body into Wright's touches like a cat, feeling sick to his stomach already. 

"Oh, I was so hoping to draw this out, to prepare you fully, but you are so very delicious, my boy. Quite the loveliest thing I've seen in ages. What I want from you..." Wright took down Eggsy's flies and reached inside to grip his cock. "Is your innocence." 

Eggsy didn't know whether to cheer or to vomit. 

He did know, however, that he had to keep focused on the mission. Get the mobile, clone it for Merlin. Stop bad people from getting dangerous things. Right. It was well worth taking it up the arse for an old pervert. He'd already managed to slip his deft fingers in and unbutton the man's shirt pocket. 

"You mean..." Eggsy bit his lip as if a little scared by the prospect, instead of the distinct nausea he felt instead. "I said anything, and I meant it. I want it to be you, not some bumbling kid my age." 

"Brilliant. Good work," Percival encouraged him, and really, he was doing quite a good job in the earpiece, lacking the anger Merlin had shown yesterday. It was delicate, certainly, but a mission is a mission. Eggsy had no doubt that Merlin was the perfect partner for anyone else in his situation, but this time his protectiveness of his lover was getting in the way of his objectivity. 

"I knew you were a smart lad from the time I set eyes on you. Would you like to make love with me?" Wright cooed into his other ear, and Eggsy devoutly hoped the shiver of horror was mistaken for quivering desire. 

"Oh yes. Yes, just you and me, n...naked..." He stumbled over naked as if it were a dirty word, hoping to plant the idea in Wright's head that naked was better than him leaving the damn shirt on and buggering Eggsy over a table or something. "It would be so perfect."

"You do understand what I want. How did I get so lucky?" Another kiss then, as Wright pushed off his blazer and undid his tie, intent on getting him, at least, naked as the day he was born. Eggsy realised that it was inevitable, so he manoevered around and made Wright's job easier. Soon enough, the professor had a naked young man on his lap. 

"Such soft skin," Wright purred, petting him like a foundling kitten before setting him on his feet to begin undressing himself. There was only a couch in Wright's chambers, with a small bathroom, so there was really nowhere else to go. All of the man's clothes were dumped unceremoniously in a pile on the floor, and his prick was hard as stone. 

Idly, Eggsy wondered if the old man took Viagra or something.

"What do I do, Sir?" he murmured shyly, moving as if to cover himself and then stopping on purpose, playing the man like a fiddle. 

"It's probably easiest to lean over the back of the sofa. Don't worry, dear boy, I will make sure this doesn't hurt in the least." Eggsy doubted the man could make it hurt on his best day, but he pliantly arranged himself over the back of the sofa, swallowed hard, and spread his legs. 

There was rummaging in a desk drawer, then Wright was back with a bottle of lube and, thank all the gods living and dead, a condom. That was more than Eggsy dared hope for, that little bit of a barrier between him and this monster. He could save skin-on-skin for Harry and Merlin. 

Eggsy didn't have to pretend discomfort when Wright's meaty fingers lubed him up, but he still purposefully tightened himself against the invasion of the man's cock. He'd taken Merlin like a champ, but this business with Wright was uncomfortable and just generally miserable. At least the man seemed to get off on his little noises of distress, at least until he decided to just take it and started meeting the rhythm, arse as tight as he could possibly make it. 

Percival was thankfully silent.

Damn, the man could go, Eggsy had to give him that. It became enough of a routine in-and-out on a regular enough rhythm that he could let his mind wander, back to Harry and Merlin and Harry's surgery and Merlin having to wait alone, and still go through the motions. Of course this pig had to be a grunter. Uh-uh-uh. _Ugh._

He'd have bruises on his hips tomorrow, and be too sore to get fucked by someone he wanted to get fucked by. His hands tightened in anger on the back of the sofa, but he controlled it, put it in a box and let Wright use him. At least (and he was perversely grateful for this), the good professor didn't seem to give a shit whether his 'good boy' came or not. 

"You'll need to convince him that, um, you want to take a nap or something with him...after." Percival did stammer a bit, but he dared break into the fucking itself and that small dose of reality helped. 

God knew that all this effort was likely to give the old bastard a heart attack, so a nap shouldn't be much of a stretch. Finally, Wright's rhythm began to falter and a hand clapped roughly to the back of his neck and shoved him forward, face pressed uncomfortably against the back edge of the sofa as the old man came. Eggsy just tried to ignore the sound of balls slapping against his arse before it ruined that noise for him. _No. No, this old fuck does not get to have any of my filthy little kinks. In fact, maybe I'll get Merlin to spank me._

The thought fortified him during the whole 'pull out and toss the condom' process, and then he turned around, red-cheeked where he was shoved against the sofa. "I feel different now." Again, not a lie. It just wasn't a good different. "Do...you think we could have a bit of a nap? I'd like to cuddle up on the sofa with you, if you don't mind."

"Might've oversold..." Percival warned.

"I should get back to work...but look at you, you're adorable with those puppy eyes, my dear boy." In fact, the man looked like he was about to keel over, so when Eggsy got up to make room for him he was asleep almost before his head hit the cushions. 

Eggsy leaned over and murmured in his ear something about going to the loo really quickly, then he snagged the mobile and the micro-usb stick out of his own trouser pocket and snuck off. The whole bloody transfer took less than thirty seconds, and phone and stick were back in their respective places in just over a minute, total. 

The professor was dead asleep, but Eggsy knew he couldn't just leave. In a way, forcing himself into the man's arms to lie against his sweaty chest was harder than getting fucked. Waiting patiently for the required time was nearly impossible. 

"Oh, very well done, Galahad," Percival said in his ear, and it made him smile a little. "Just two more hours till he drops you at the flat. We'll have a car there to bring you in. It's almost over."

*******************************************************************

It was past midnight when Eggsy slunk into Harry's new room, which was very much as advertised--private, elegantly decorated, with a lovely proper bed. Harry was bandaged and on only a couple of monitors and an IV, and Merlin was snugged in next to him on top of the covers, close but not sleeping. 

Eggsy had stopped into wardrobe, taken another scalding shower, let them put his hair back to rights and dressed in his own jeans and tee shirt. The bruises were starting to show, and he had one shadowing his cheek. 

Merlin slid out of bed and padded to him, hand going to the unbruised side of his face. "Oh, sweetheart..." On top of the long, excruciating day he'd had, obviously seeing Eggsy roughed up was one thing too many. Rather than push his young lover away, he pulled him close, in tight against his broad chest, where he smelled vaguely of sweat and his cologne and a little like Harry and entirely like heaven. 

It was easy to just burrow in, arms tight around Merlin's ribs, and shiver with the sheer cleanliness of it, the ineffable rightness. "How's our handsome man?" he asked, a little smushed and muffled.

"He was so strong they were able to keep him in for eight hours. "They rebuilt his eye, and his forehead. They're saying only one more surgery." He tipped Eggsy's head back and kissed him, no hesitation, long and slow and deep enough to curl his toes. "And now I have both my lovely men home." 

"Mmm, you planning on coming over here at all?" Harry's voice carried well, despite how soft it was. They both practically scurried over, and Eggsy beamed down at the older man. 

"Merlin was telling me you aced this surgery business."

"Top of the class, apparently. Fucker got rough with you...definitely gonna make him pay. Tomorrow. Now, get in here, middle spot." Harry was so authoritative that even half-sedated and groggy Eggsy was toeing off his shoes and trying to figure out how to fit. 

"We have two hours till the next round of checks," Merlin murmured in his ear, pulling the covers back so he could crawl in and make himself as tiny as possible. "I'll set my alarm." 

There were subtle wooden rails keeping Harry in bed on his side, and Eggsy nosed up against his shoulder, breathing him in, hospital scent and all. And then Merlin was behind him, arm under his cheek and another reaching across him to Harry's hip. 

"We're glad you're home," Merlin whispered, and Harry made a noise of assent before succumbing again to the painkiller torpor. "God, you feel so good right here. Not too much is it?"

"Yeah, of course it's too much, but I need it." Eggsy's voice was raw. "I know it's impossible, but god help me, I never want anyone but you or Harry to touch me like that again." 

"Oh, Eggsy..." What could Merlin say? Empty promises? Bullshit about duty? It was all impossible, just like Eggsy said. "Just hold on. Hold onto us. We're not going anywhere." 

"Merlin...this is love, innit?" 

Now it was Merlin's turn to sound raw and ragged. "Yeah, sweetheart. That's what this is. Are we about to cry all over poor Harry?"

"No...cry. Sleep. Love you." Harry managed all of five words, but they were perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all continue to amaze and delight! And yes, we need to get Harry out of the damn hospital. Yesterday. Working on it :) Also getting IDEAS for a prequel fic of Harry and Merlin getting together, as well as sad future!fic.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy gets right in his head. Harry loses his mind a bit. All in all, it works out beautifully. In other words, the happy, smutty chapter everyone's been wanting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lurve and fluff and sex and smut. Also, there's a clue in here as to the love interest in the Percival side story. Come over to my tumblr at http://songaboutexiles.tumblr.com/ and enter your guess :) And hey, maybe follow me if you're so inclined, for snippets and OT3 goodness.

Dawn was greying the windows of Merlin's townhouse when he and Eggsy finally stumbled in. Harry was passed out and drooling, though Eggsy was sure he'd rather die than admit it, and having to jerk awake to an alarm every two hours was wrecking the recovery process for all three of them. So here they were, banished back to town, blearily headed up the stairs to find some manner of rest. 

Eggsy was moving like an old man, suddenly sore as hell and acutely aware of every little finger bruise on his body. "Oi, I feel like utter crap. Maybe another shower..."

Merlin stopped him at the top of the stairs and caught his face gently between his hands. "I don't think more scalding water is what you need, love." 

The other man's eyes were so hooded normally, so guarded, but now Eggsy felt like he could just fall in and let them hold him steady on his feet. "I know it's not. I need you. I...need you in me."

"He was none too gentle with you, and I will not have you hurt again," Merlin murmured, voice thick. Eggsy always had a spring in his step after the two of them fucked, but this miserable bastard had left his calling card in the most intimate of ways and now his lover was in need of healing and time.

"Yeah...I get it." Eggsy's eyes fell away from Merlin's. He was dirty, and it would take time to get clean enough again. Understanding it didn't stop him from wanting Merlin with every cell in his body.

"Bloody hell, you do not. Whatever you're thinking, you're completely off base. When I say I don't want to hurt you, especially, EVER like that, that's exactly what I mean. I don't. want. to. hurt. you." Merlin could see the cogs grinding in Eggsy's brain, and he wanted to put a stop to it before anything poisonous could seep inside.

"You really don't think...it's disgusting to touch me when he was just touching me hours ago?" He hated how tremulous his voice sounded.

"No. God, no. In fact, I want to cover your body with mine and kiss every inch of it until you don't even remember what he smelled like." And if it wouldn't hurt him, Merlin would crawl inside him and never come out.

"I want that. Please, can I have that? If I beg you, will you fuck me?" It was pathetic, and he knew that, but this was Merlin, and if he could be pathetic at anyone in the world it would be Harry and Merlin. 

"Let's go to bed and see what we can do without hurting you. All right?" Merlin crowded even closer into Eggsy's space and leaned down to murmur, "If I can work three fingers into your gorgeous little hole without you wincing, I'll fuck you. Nice and deep and slow. Deal?"

Eggsy always has to wonder how this man can make him so hard so goddamned fast. "God, yeah. Deal." 

"And if I can't, don't think I'm done with you. Won't be done till you come howling my name, yeah?" You could light an inferno off the heat in Merlin's eyes.

"Stop teasing." _And let me get naked NOW._ Instead of backing off he leaned in, drawn to Merlin's mouth, hungry for one of those bonfire kisses, rewarded by warm lips, a hot tongue and sharp, nipping teeth that slowly but surely took him apart. 

Merlin backed him across the room and Eggsy let him, trusting him utterly with his body on every level. "When I'm teasing, you'll know," Merlin growled, tugging Eggsy's tee shirt up and off, thumbs going immediately to the tight little nipples, rubbing, pressing, then pinching lightly. The sweet torture only lasted a few moments, until Merlin started in on his button and zip, crouching down to nuzzle the lovely, hard cock he uncovered as he took care of the shoes and socks. 

The bruises made him feel equally murderous and protective, and he knelt right there, fully clothed, to take Eggsy's prick into his mouth, swallowing until it was past the back of his throat. Protective won out, of course, since the bastard who deserved murdering was nowhere nearby. 

"Ah, fuck, fuck, Merlin..." Eggsy braced his legs and reached down to stroke the soft skin of Merlin's head. "No, you're not teasin', but this ain't how I wanna come, either..." There had been some talk about covering his body and fingering and he rather had his heart set on that plan, no matter how good Merlin's mouth felt. 

"You've taken such good care of me...now it's my turn." Merlin let Eggsy slip from his mouth and stood to gently push the younger man down onto the bed, where he landed with his legs splayed and body lengthened. It felt so good to be on display for his lover that Eggsy stretched out more, grabbing the headboard and spreading his thighs. He didn't even think about the bruises.

They didn't detract from the spectacle from Merlin's perspective, obviously. "Jesus, you're fucking beautiful." Merlin's own clothes were peeled off with an unseemly haste, and then he was crawling up between Eggsy's lean-muscled thighs, greater height and weight just the perfect cradle for Eggsy's anxious and hungry body. "You know I love you, yeah? Wasn't just taking the piss before." 

"No, god, no, I know. I love you, too." It made his heart hurt. Someone should just DIE from loving two people so much. But not him. No, Eggsy was made of sterner stuff than that, and he had an endless supply of love to give to the worthy. It seemed like a statement like that should come with a kiss, so he pulled Merlin's head down into one. 

Really, he should do something about the way his toes literally curled from their deep kisses.

Merlin broke the kiss to nuzzle at Eggsy's chin till his head tipped back, and then he licked and suckled a line of kisses to his collarbones, first one side, then the other, before finding those sensitive little nipples again. Sucking hard on them made Eggsy squirm deliciously, sent his hands flailing before they settled on Merlin's shoulders, and acted like a direct circuit to his balls. No one had ever, ever, taken the time to learn his body like this. He'd never even known, for fuck's sake, what sucking on his nipples would do to him. 

"I think one day, when we're all feeling very lazy and perverse, we should make you come just by playing with these and whispering filthy things in your ears," Merlin purred, grazing one and then the other with his teeth before laving his tongue lower. He avoided Eggsy's straining prick, much to Eggsy's dismay. The dismay turned to something else entirely when he realised that tongue was headed right for his arse. _Fuck yeah._

Eggsy was already so far gone he barely noticed when Merlin slid a pillow under his hips and fetched the lube from under a pillow. How Harry would hate the lack of organization. Lube everywhere! Probably a dildo out of place somewhere, too. 

The pillow made his legs fall apart and he felt so exquisitely, utterly exposed. Merlin delayed gratification by circling the reddened ring of muscles with his tongue, and Eggsy knew it was an examination of sorts. Well, Merlin knew what Eggsy could take and still walk straight the next day, so the fact that he was this swollen must mean his body was utterly unwilling to give anything to Wright at all. 

Merlin, though...He could feel himself already flexing open and closed in anticipation of a tongue tip, much less long, clever fingers and a meaty cock. He whined low in his throat and wriggled, wordlessly begging for more, and of course, of **course** , Merlin gave it to him. His tongue laved the whole rim, from tailbone to perineum, only to return to the tender ring itself. It felt to Eggsy like time had slowed, and Merlin was spending hours just laving, licking and sucking at the delicate flesh until Eggsy felt obscenely open. The rough tongue was a welcome balm for the soreness, and Eggsy's body unfolded to let it in.

Merlin moaned at the sight of that pink-red hole opening, and he plunged his tongue deep, fighting against muscles that only put up a token fight against him before utterly yielding. It was the sounds, Eggsy decided, every bit as much as the sensation, that drove him absolutely fucking insane. Slurping, sucking at wet flesh, moaning from Merlin and mewling from him, the odd little sound of flesh against flesh. 

Finally, Eggsy made up his mind that he just might come all over himself if they didn't change it up a little, and that was not what he wanted (although he sure as hell filed that one away for one of those lazy pervert days: 'could totally come from a good rimming'). "Merlin, fuck...god, more. Your fingers, please, need more..."

Sure he was sore, but that seemed to only make him crave Merlin more, made him quiver and clench his arse around Merlin's tongue then go absolutely lax to show him he could take it. Oh sweet Jesus fuck, could he take it. "Merlin, please." Merlin finally broke off, crawling back up Eggsy's compact body to kiss along his jaw while thoroughly slicking his fingers. 

The first one circled the entrance before sliding in, slowly, carefully, with little thrusts so that Eggsy could accommodate it. It was just a bit shocking and scandalous how open he still felt, the soreness from earlier just a distant counterpoint to the pleasure curling along his spine. And since Eggsy was a very smart boy who very much wanted to be fucked properly, he made damned sure that only the pleasure showed on his face. 

"Fuck, you feel so good," Eggsy murmured, utterly comfortable with the pillow under his hips, not even having to rely on his famous dexterity to hold himself open. 

"I missed you, missed this, how you smell, you taste, how you feel," Merlin admitted, submitting when Eggsy pulled him into a kiss even though it meant he couldn't watch the younger man's face as he added a second finger and even more lube. 

Eggsy took it so sweetly, hips arching toward the penetration and not away from it. "'S different with so much lube...feels..." Sloppy, messy, glorious.

"Decadent." Merlin had the right word of course, but words were meaningless when he curled his fingers and pressed against the swollen little gland. Then it was nothing but arching, writhing hips and puddles of precome and half-formed begging. Merlin had to be merciless, though, and that third finger entered, along with his thumb pressing the prostate from the outside and the pads of his fingers pressing from the inside. 

Eggsy was just whining low in his chest at this point, not even trying to get more or to force the situation. Merlin was apparently going to do exactly as Merlin pleased, which was one of the rules of the universe. Merlin also got to decide that he did, indeed, take those three fingers satisfactorily. And if there was a hint of shaking in his hands as he withdrew and a hiss as he tried to get even more lube on his prick without coming all over them both, well. No one would ever tell. 

Except maybe that poor pillowcase, which, to be fair, had a legitimate grievance with the proceedings.

Merlin settled himself between Eggsy's splayed thighs, locking eyes with him as he gripped the younger man's thighs gently and pushed inside. Yeah, it was a stretch, a bit of a burn, but Eggsy held onto Merlin's forearms and urged him forward. "Please, oh please, you feel so good..." Don't give up on him now. 

Things had progressed well past that stage, although Merlin would have pulled out in an instant had Eggsy told him to. No, the mutual craving to fill and be filled wasn't going to be denied or prolonged for one more instant. The moment Merlin's cock filled him so utterly, Eggsy would have been hard pressed to even remember that other man's name, much less the humiliation and pain he'd felt. Oh, he'd still have to deal with it at some point, just not in this perfect moment with the sun rising outside the windows and his lover balls-deep inside him. 

Blunt nails dug in deep to draw Merlin closer, down to a kiss, and for long moments they stayed right there, mired in the dawn light and each other's need. Need grew into urgency, as it tended to do, and Merlin started to move in a sinuous, slow movement. True to his word he stayed deep, so deep, adjusting Eggsy so that every thrust nudged his sweet spot. 

"Oh..." It was a sharp exhalation, and Eggsy wrapped his legs around Merlin's waist, finally finding the wherewithal to lift his hips into every rocking thrust. Gorgeous, perfect...this man was beautiful. The antithesis of everything he'd experienced earlier. 

Again, it was Eggsy with his hair-trigger hunger who fell over the edge first, nails leaving red marks behind as he clutched Merlin to him and spurted over their bellies, feeling like for the first time in days he was finally, finally right, body and mind together. Eggsy's hunger may have been quick and explosive and dazzling, but Merlin was powerless to resist it. He could have kept going, sure, but why? Why not get lost in the moment, let himself be swept up in Eggsy's pleasure, filling the younger man in convulsive spasms and leaving them breathless and lost together out in the grey.

Neither could do more than make exhausted, sated little noises until Merlin braved the task of gently pulling out and wrapping the smaller man up in his arms. It felt good to be the one giving comfort for a change. "You hurting?"

"Mmm, not really. Won't be doing the parkour course this afternoon or nothin', but I feel amazing." Eggsy kissed Merlin again, like the man's lips had a magnetic attraction. "Sleep. Definitely sleep."

"God, yes."

Eggsy loved (among the many things he loved about their threesome) the way he fit into Merlin's embrace, and the fact that the other man cared as little as he did about waking up in a pristine bed. Fuck, pass out, the way the gods intended.

**

The next week passed in a blur of debriefings and convalescence. Percival and Arthur were on board with the 'pissed off mother putting the fear into Wright' plan, and Roxy had a grand old time playing said pissed off mother in phone calls and letters. Eventually, she extracted a healthy and deterring bribe out of the man, which would be funneled into a charity that helped abused and neglected kids. Harry's idea worked perfectly--while Wright was still making his illicit uranium deals he'd regretfully shuttered his mentorship program.

Eggsy went out on one brief reconnaissance mission, but he spent most of his time training and hanging about with Harry, who was growing fractious and bored despite the decided progress of having his eye and part of his forehead unbandaged. The prosthetic eye matched his real one perfectly, and the reconstruction was nothing short of brilliant. Eggsy's one attempt at perspective ("Harry, you had your bloody head blown off, it takes a minute, don't it?") was met with a nigh-murderous glare and a demand for a chess set. 

When Eggsy came in at lunch time, he brought Harry's favourite sandwich and salad from the canteen (which was shockingly decent) rather than the bland hospital food and a brand new wooden chess set he'd picked out on his own. You'd have thought he was the second coming as he set up the board according to Harry's instructions around mouths full of brie-and-pear baguette.

The one truth that he could only admit to Merlin was one that might just get him killed with Harry's little finger or something--Harry Hart was fucking adorable. 

Eggsy had played a little in school, but he let Harry give him the refresher course. It's all a simulated battlefield of course, knights move like so, yes because they're on horseback, rooks do this, pawns do that. "And don't take it easy on me because I literally have a hole in my head."

"As if that would slow you down for a second," Eggsy teased, watching Harry take the first move. What disconcerted them both more than a little was that Eggsy wiped the board with Harry, and it wasn't hard to see why--Harry wouldn't sacrifice a piece to gain a greater advantage. In fact, Eggsy could see him struggle in those situations and deliberately choose the route that was safest. 

He didn't crow over his victory, nor did Harry moan over his loss, and they reset the board. Again, Harry lost, and for the same reason. Eggsy could feel his frustration--this was all a part of being more emotional than usual, more raw and open. Apparently, it extended even to chess pieces. Harry could see the logical thing to do, but it didn't feel **right**. 

Finally, in the third match, Harry set his jaw in a hard line and started to do what he needed to do to win. It was an obvious struggle, and Eggsy just played his best game without comment. It wasn't much of a surprise that he was the one getting trounced this time, and thoroughly, too. When Harry was ruthless, nothing could stop that brilliant mind. 

Eggsy rolled with it, and smiled when he lost. "Right, I have to demand best three out of five." He looked up from resetting the board when he couldn't find one of Harry's pawns, only to discover the piece clutched in shaking hands. 

"I just...let it die. I let it die so I could win a game. A fucking game! It was a soldier, it deserved better!" Harry's voice was choked, and Eggsy was horrified to see tears gather and spill down Harry's cheeks. Holy fuck, this was like boyfriend level 100 stuff right here, but he was the only one in the room, and he would protect Harry from this. From himself. 

"Harry, love..." He stood and moved the small table out of his way so he could crouch down in front of his lover. "This is a game. That pawn is just carved out of wood." 

"It's what the pawn represents, Eggsy. They all deserve so much better, and I can't give them better, I can only give them death." Eggsy stood back up and pulled Harry into his arms, the man's head resting against his chest. 

"You're right, love, they do." No one deserves to be a pawn, at least no one in Kingsman. 

"They...we...used you, sacrificed you like a pawn and we never thought twice about it, and if we could do that to you, when you're so loved..." What could they do, what had they done, to others?

"Shh...no, I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine. It's the job, beautiful, innit? And it's worth it." He stroked Harry's long hair, fingers oh-so-gentle. "Where would I be without you, hm?"

"You're different. You're always different." It didn't quite make sense, but Eggsy got it anyway. His life was so fucked that getting buggered by nasty old men was a step up. He wasn't plucked from comfort and safety and thrust into this violent world that used agents up like tissues in a flu pandemic. 

"I guess I was. So, stop crying, yeah? You're breaking my heart. You'll do right by folks, Harry. You know you will." _And if you have to cry over it later, then we'll be there to hold you._

"Look at it." Harry pulled back and thrust the pawn into Eggsy's hand. "It's so small and so defenceless and I threw it away like it was nothing." 

"So...what could you do different and still win? I mean, not with chess because who cares, it's a game. But as Arthur, what could you do? When the world is on the line?" Maybe it was too much pressure for Harry, as distressed as he was, but Eggsy had to do something, anything, to steer him out of this black hole before it sucked him up. 

Harry took the pawn back and shuddered as he got his sobs under control. "What if we could get ahead of things more? The more intelligence we have, the better our agents' chances are, we know that." 

"You mean like...spying on everyone? Aren't we doing that already?" 

"Yes, yes, but...I remember reading about this mathematician working out of Cambridge who used to help the FBI catch killers using advanced predictive modelling. Maybe he would be able to sort out this mess and clean up all the data. Make it better, safer for our agents." Harry nodded his head and wiped angrily at his eyes. "Yes. I'll send Percival out to recruit him. They should get along well, if I recall the good doctor's history." 

"See, look at you, Arthuring already." Eggsy bent down, smiling, and tenderly kissed under each eye, and when Harry finally met his gaze he grazed his lips with a soft kiss. 

"Do you know what else has me upset?" Harry used the element of surprise to pull Eggsy in to straddle his lap. "Sexual frustration. That is a very upsetting thing, Eggsy." 

"You're not half-joking," Eggsy replied, grinning when he felt the beginnings of an erection stir beneath him.

"What are you complaining about, you and Merlin have been going at it like weasels and here I am..." 

"...With a literal hole in your head..."

"...Left to imagine and fantasise about it all. I can't promise you Merlin-level ferocity at the moment, but I would very much like it if you would finally come to bed with me." He paused. "Unless the hole in the head is too offputting."

"You're Harry fucking Hart. Nothing could put me off you." And to prove it, Eggsy cupped Harry's face and kissed him. It wasn't like that first kiss, or the sweet ones they'd shared in the days since. No, this was hot, deep, open-mouthed and thoroughly filthy. 

Harry's hands found Eggsy's hips and brought them down to his lap, rocking him forward so the younger man could see the effect he was having on Harry. It was thoroughly reciprocated, and there was even a little voice in Eggsy's head insisting that this couldn't possibly be real. He couldn't be in Harry's arms at last, after everything. After coming so, so close to losing this beautiful, deadly, brilliant man. And yet, there was nothing imaginary about Harry's hard cock through his thin pyjamas. 

"Bed...oh fuck, bed?" Eggsy murmured, wondering if Harry was still the foul-mouthed tart Merlin had described or if he was about to get a 'language, Eggsy' remark. 

"Yes, the bed, fucking hell...I want to see every inch of that beautiful body of yours, and then I want to taste it. Just go lock the door, hm?" Because he could lock it now, and they wouldn't beat it down. 

Eggsy practically flew to comply, and Harry levered himself up and back to bed, shedding his dressing gown and pyjama top over the back of a chair, then unfussily letting the rest follow suit, crawling into bed naked and waiting for Eggsy. Eggsy stopped still when he saw Harry, thick prick jutting up from his too-skinny belly. In fact, other than looking near-emaciated, the man was just about everything he'd ever dreamed. 

"Damn, Harry...you don't want to know how long I've tossed off thinking about this, about you." Eggsy made a bit more of a production because he was wearing his suit, all save the jacket which he shed when he'd entered. He knew Harry liked him in a suit. 

"Tell me about it," Harry ordered, his voice soft but implacable. His eyes were glued hungrily to every inch of flesh that Eggsy uncovered. 

First the tie, then the shirt, one button at a time. Not a striptease, just a revelation. "Ohh, I think I had wicked thoughts about you from the moment I met you, wondering if you were posh even with your cock down someone's throat. My throat." When the shirt was unbuttoned he laid it aside and tugged off his vest.

"Then, god, when you beat up everyone in the pub, you moved like...Jesus, like fucking velvet. Most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and I wanted to kneel between your legs right there and then. You were my goddamned hero." It was like a drug, having Harry's rapt, utter attention, the sheer hunger on his face mixed with a tenderness that might just break his heart. 

"Your hero...you have no idea, do you, what you did, how proud you made me. The more I hear, the more proud I am. You're a marvel. Now stop with the slow strip and get naked. I've got a hole in my head and I'm feeling demanding." As if the one excused the other. 

Thankfully, Eggsy had no problem making that equation, so he did exactly as Harry asked, dancing naked near the bed, just out of reach for a long moment before he crawled up on top of the older man, settling his weight across his hips and grinding his hard cock on Harry's. "Has the man with the hole in his head ever wondered what it would be like to fuck my mouth?"

"Kisses first. Always more kisses." And that right there marked Harry as a far more patient man than Merlin would ever be, each delightfully sweet and perverse in their own ways. 

"Always." Eggsy bent down and let Harry claim his mouth again, rocking his hips in a slow counterpoint to the beat of tongues and slow, shared breaths. "But..." He sucked on Harry's tongue and rubbed his thumb over a dark nipple. "You really..." Mm, he liked the reaction when he lightly bit Harry's lip. "Don't know..." His lithe hips circled on Harry's, and they were both already leaking precome. "How much I want this..." He let himself get lost in Harry's mouth for long moments. "In my mouth." 

"Well, have at it, then, love," Harry murmured. "But bring your hips up here. You're not the only one dying for a taste." 

It took a bit of manoeuvering , but Eggsy managed to arrange himself with his knees splayed across Harry's chest, arching his back to give him access to anything he wanted while he finally darted out his tongue to taste the delicious droplet of precome, and, just like with Merlin, he had a sense of rightness. That this was the first time of many, many to come, countless blow jobs, innumerable kisses, infinite fucks. It made him feel shivery inside, and he took Harry as deep inside as he could, throat flexing supple and strong around the whole length. 

Harry actually cried out with it, something that Eggsy felt as an exhalation and light little bite against his inner thigh. It was all just almost too much--he'd come right there from sucking Harry's cock like some stupid kid. He had bigger plans. He wanted Harry inside him. 

It would seem Harry had an inkling of his intentions when he spread Eggsy's arse wide open and laved his tongue over the pink little hole, still a little distended from this morning's shower fuck with Merlin. Eggsy shuddered and whimpered and set a rhythm that had Harry throbbing low and slow against his tongue.

Harry's tongue dipped inside, nice and deep, and Eggsy felt the moan reverberate through his whole core. "Taste him in you," Harry murmured, before returning to the task, finding a counterpoint to Eggsy's suckling. Eggsy's hips bucked and he cried out around Harry's cock, desperately holding onto his orgasm because fuck, that was...what had Merlin called it? Decadent. 

Eggsy was still relaxed enough that he took two spit-slick fingers easily, and oh there was something wicked and good about the way Harry still licked and sucked around those fingers. Jesus. He was going to die if Harry touched his prostate. 

Harry knew when his lovers were on a hair trigger, when to pull it and when to ease off. Eggsy didn't want to come till he was riding Harry's cock, just like Harry didn't want to come till his seed could mingle with Merlin's deep in this glorious arse. No matter how spectacular this blow job was (and it was bloody Christmas as far as Harry was concerned), it was nothing to looking into Eggsy's eyes and watching every little reaction as he filled him up. So no playing with the prostate, even though his fingers were itching to touch.

Suddenly Eggsy pulled off his cock and gasped, "If you want to fuck me, do it now. I'm gonna come all over you if we don't stop this right fucking now."

Harry pulled out fingers and tongue immediately and let Eggsy scramble around to straddle his hips again. The look on Eggsy's face -- wrecked, hungry, fucking worshipful--was almost too much. And the way that look evolved as Eggsy settled himself down on Harry's cock was all of those things and so much more. Eggsy knew that his whole heart was pinned on his bare chest for Harry to see, and it didn't scare him one bit. 

Not much did, except the idea of losing his two brilliant, beautiful men. 

"Harry...oh god, Harry..." He reached down for his lover, splayed his hands on Harry's chest and rocked his apparently boneless hips. Harry felt so different from Merlin, thick where Merlin was long, veiny where Merlin was smoother. Little differences that he relished, treasured. It was enough to flay him open soul-deep. What was that phrase? An embarrassment of riches. 

"Eggsy, god, you feel perfect, god..." Harry's hands slid up Eggsy's arms, over his shoulders. "I can't...I just can't..." It had been so, so long, and he'd been so, so broken. This much pleasure was more than he could stand.

"So we stop fighting it," Eggsy murmured, letting Harry's cock brush his prostate on every downstroke, and in less than thirty seconds he was crying out with shameless pleasure as he came all over Harry, spending himself until there was nothing left to give as he felt Harry do exactly the same. 

Eggsy ended up plastered to Harry's chest, smiling woozily as Harry stroked his sweaty hair and back. "My darling," Harry whispered. "I do love you so." 

"I wondered...mmm...how it would be the first time you told me. It was... a lot like that." Eggsy turned his head to look at Harry. "I love you, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being the best readership out there. There's more angst ahead, naturally, and feats of derring-do, but for now, all is calm and peaceful.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn a surprising new thing about Harry, Merlin and Eggsy have a bit of a domestic, and Harry dispenses good news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel weird putting this as a 'warning' because it's, you know, a totally normal thing, but Harry spoke up in my head and told me he sometimes likes to pretend he's a girl. So...yes, a bit genderqueer. If this is not your thing, skip the first scene. To all those not squicked, this is my first time writing about these kinds of issues, so any mistakes are newbie mistakes and not meant to be insulting. Please feel free to point out any way that I'm mis-representing. 
> 
> Oh, and I gave Merlin a name. It had to happen eventually.

Of course it was procedure for Eggsy to go out on training missions. Naturally it was. So there was no point in being irritable about it, Merlin knew, even though it meant he was going to miss Harry's second surgery while getting used for target practice in some godsforsaken backwater partnering with Percival and Lancelot on a straight up cleanout of a terrorist cell. He wasn't looking forward to telling Harry, even though Harry would likely be more philosophical about it than he was. 

What he didn't expect when entering Harry's suite was to find his lover in bed, with the duvet up to his bare nipples and one hand invisible under the covers. "Oh, thank god, it's about time." 

All irritation fled when he looked at Harry, when he recognised that particular look on his face. "Is it? Whatever are you up to?" 

"Pull back the bloody covers and see for yourself," he ground out, cheeks and chest flushed red, nipples hard as little pebbles.

Merlin took his time toeing off his shoes and locking the door before he crawled up on the bed between Harry's splayed thighs and grabbed the edge of the duvet, pulling it down over sensitised skin. Even though he knew what he was going to find, it still made him suck in a breath and let it out slowly in appreciation. "Jesus fucking Christ, Harry." 

Somewhere, Harry had lifted some packets of medical lubricant, because slick fingers, four of them, were pressed up inside his swollen and stretched little pucker. His cock was hard and deep red at the exposed tip, lying in a puddle of precome on his belly. It was a fucking glorious thing to behold.

"Taking me for surgery in the morning..." Harry pulled out till just his fingertips were inside, then moaned deep in his chest when he thrust them back in. "God knows how long it'll be till I have another chance to get you inside me. So...fucking tired of being so tight and dry and closed up."

Oh, so that was how it fucking was. Harry may be the power bottom to rule all power bottoms but those words meant something very specific. His beloved was craving the one thing that still brought him shame, despite years of reassurance that it was something Merlin found insanely arousing. "Ahh, your poor little pussy, it's been so long since you've had it fucked properly, yeah?" One hand undid his flies and the other braced him as he leaned up over Harry, flicking his tongue against just the red tip of his erection, lapping up the precome as it spurted across pale skin. 

The whine that accompanied his words and actions, the deepening of the blush were pure perfection to Merlin. "So long, Merlin...hate feeling so empty...promise me you'll fuck me so deep, so hard.."

"Tell me what you really want. Fuck, your nipples are so hard," Merlin growled, sucking and biting on each one, then trapping it between his teeth and rubbing at the delicate flesh with his tongue while his hand bunched up the muscle around it. "Christ, you have the sweetest tits. God's sakes, Harry, you know how this works. Tell me what you really want, so I can fuck you properly."

This was always the hardest part. Harry liked to pretend he'd left his youthful hang-ups behind him, but this one, so integral to who he was, still broke him apart. It was why Merlin always insisted on hearing it from Harry's trembling lips. "Fuck my..." He licked his lips and squirmed under the tongue bath he was getting. "Fuck my pussy." 

"That's my beautiful lass," Merlin murmured, thrusting his hips forward as Harry removed his fingers, gliding in balls-deep nice and easy. "Oh, fucking hell, sweetheart..." 

"Aaron, oh...oh Aaron..." This was the only time Harry ever trotted out Merlin's given name, but it felt so damned intimate, made him feel safer by making Merlin feel just a bit exposed in turn. "You always fill up my cunt so perfectly..." 

Mmm, the deeper Merlin got, the harder the rhythm he set, the more his lover let go and let the words come. The words were so damned important to this, especially in the absence of their usual lingerie and props. They were making a reality here between them, one that might have defied logic to anyone on the outside but was one of their deepest truths. 

"No place I'd rather be than deep in this tight pussy," Merlin ground out the words, hauling Harry's hips up and letting the other's legs fall open. "Yeah, open up for me nice and pretty, darling."

The rhythm was punishing but the angle was perfect and Harry was practically crying at the sheer relief of his lover's cock hitting his sweet spot every time he bottomed out. "You're going...oh god..you're going to make me come and I'll make such a mess," he breathed.

"You just play with your pretty tits and let me worry about cleaning your messes," Merlin couldn't help reverting to a low, rumbling growl. Harry always thought this was his kink, his 'thing,' but there was no doubt what it did to Merlin in return. Sure, the vast majority of the time his lover was Harry Hart, polished gentleman, but sometimes, oh, sometimes he was Aaron's sweet little lass just begging for a good fuck. 

Harry's hands were shaking so badly that he barely managed to comply, but somehow he managed to get his fingers around his aching nipples, pinching and pulling at them roughly. Just like Merlin knew it would, it triggered his lover's orgasm. Harry's back arched and he cried out so loudly that Merlin had to cover his mouth with his own and swallow the noise before someone broke down their door. 

The sloppy kiss also came in handy for stifling his own cries as he burrowed deeply into Harry and just let go. He couldn't deny the catharsis, the way that making love to Harry finally, **finally** , after so many months made him feel. He wasn't going to cry all over the poor man, but he was shaking and he welcomed Harry's arms around his neck, pulling him in flush to his beloved's body and, in the end, heedless of the mess. 

"Shhh, my love, I know...I know." Harry **was** crying, and Merlin wasn't sure he was going to be able to wrap his mind around this newly emotional creature his Harry had become. 

There was nought to do but hold each other then, until it all passed. Until Harry quieted and his breathing turned laboured and exhaustion started creeping in. This was probably too much, but sometimes your heart needs what your body isn't quite up to and the heart won't be denied. 

It made Merlin smile as he finally pulled carefully out of Harry and separated their sticky bellies gently. He kissed the tears from the corners of Harry's eyes. 'The heart won't be denied' should be on all three of their gravestones someday. Some day very far into the future. 

"Will Eggsy think this is disgusting?" Harry whispered so softly that Merlin almost missed it as he was buckling his belt to make a bathroom run for wet cloths. 

"Eggsy?" The idea of Eggsy being put off by a bit of gender play was so patently ridiculous he had to force himself not to chuckle. "I think that after the first time he participates in this side of things, we'll be going out corset shopping for **him** within the week. Darling, Eggsy is thoroughly bent, and he adores you. He'll adore all of you, I can promise you that."

Harry nodded slowly. "I hope so." 

"Trust me?" Harry smiled in response. "Then trust me on this. He'll love it, just like he loves you."

**

"All I'm sayin' is, this plan sucks," Eggsy stated definitively as he vaulted a shrubbery in a somersault and shot two guards in the process, flowing like water over everything in his path. 

"And all I'm saying is that you're the one who stepped on the bloody motion sensor," Merlin furiously blew up schematics to double check the route he'd chosen for his agent. "You know how we said go right? Go left, there's a servant's back stair." Reduced the kill zone to something manageable, like everyone ahead and everyone behind.

"And who didn't know the bloody sensor was there?" Eggsy processed the information flawlessly as he used one body for a shield and then stole his gun as a back up against his own ever-diminishing ammunition. 

"Don't sass me, Galahad." There was a pause as Eggsy took down more guards and seemingly disregarded gravity as a force that applied to him. "It was installed yesterday." 

"But we are sure where they're keeping the damn prince, yeah?" Eggsy gained the left hand corridor of the mansion, heading to the Western wing. 

"Yes, yes, now shut up and don't die, you bloody git," Merlin had managed to deactivate the remaining motion sensors as well as the cameras. "Left, left, right, left, right and you'll be in the kitchen, servant stairs at the back right." 

The crowd of armed thugs thinned out a bit, but Eggsy suspected it was because they'd figured out where he was headed and had rerouted men toward the stairwell. For all the sheer manpower the boy's elder brother had thrown at this kidnapping attempt, they were really not terribly good at what they were doing. _Don't just recruit whatever religious fanatics are lying around and hand them AKs. Pro tip from me, Agent Galahad._

Or, you know, maybe go ahead and do just that, because when he ascended the staircase by the simple expedient of walking ON them, they were so confused half of them got shot by friendly fire and no one even came close to hitting him. At the top of the stairs, Eggsy could just mow them down as they came up, taking their weapons as they fell. 

And yet they kept coming, blindly willing to die for their extremist prince. _Not my problem innit._ He was blindly fanatical about two things in his life, and yet he managed not to act like a total git. 

"Very well done. I'm counting 48 down, that leaves the two at the young prince's door. Might I suggest..." Merlin didn't even get to finish his sentence before Eggsy was taking a lighter out of his pocket and sliding it down the long, polished marble floor to the two guards.

"Aw, fuck yeah!" he crowed as the grenade blew outward, leaving bits of crazy everywhere and one unguarded door. 

"You enjoy your job a wee bit too much sometimes. Enter slowly, the boy's bound to be terrified." Merlin swept the cameras, double checking his counts and making sure there were no untoward surprises inside.

Eggsy called out, "Prince Sayed, I've come to rescue you. I'm gonna kick down the door, so get back a bit, yeah? You hear me?" 

After a long moment, the prince replied, "I hear you." 

"Galahad, we have the combination to the keypad lock." Merlin shook his head.

"This is so much more fun, innit?" With one well placed kick, the door splintered and Eggsy was able to get it open, finding one very scared and very very pretty university first year standing by the fourposter bed, as if one of the fragile posts would give him any protection. "I'm here to take you to your father. I think it's safe to say your brother is disinherited. Are you hurt?" 

Sayed shook his head, dark curls disarrayed rather fetchingly. "No. No he wasn't going to hurt me until he executed me in the morning and broadcast the video to the world to tell them what happens to infidels." 

"Right, then. Follow me out, stay close, right on me. Can you do that?" Eggsy gave him his most charming smile. 

Sayed bit his lip and nodded, smiling for the first time. 

"Good, because we've got this so handled, you will not even believe." Sayed stayed glued to his back as they made their way back down and out, avoiding the kill box that was the servant's stair, but the young prince still flinched at the random horrors he did see. Eggsy idly wondered if there was something wrong with him that he didn't even spare corpses a second look. 

Eh, bad guys were bad guys. No point in getting all excited over villain bits.

Sayed took Eggsy's advice so literally that he nearly tripped him a few times, so Eggsy ended up actually taking the kid's hand and leading him through the sensors (in case there was still someone who hadn't popped up to get his head shot off) to the black ladder dangling from a very silent black helicopter. He put Sayed on the ladder first, the followed close behind, breathing a sigh of relief as they flew away. 

"Here's to peace in your time, Crown Prince Sayed." Eggsy smiled at the young man, who tentatively, shyly smiled back. 

"It is all I ever wanted. Peace, freedom and joy for my people." He blushed a little, and really, the kid was incredibly adorable. 

"Don't ever let 'em take that dream away from you, yeah? That dream is what got you rescued, instead of beheaded at dawn." Eggsy softened the harsh words by upping the smile to his unfair megawatt levels.

"I don't even know who you are, and you risked so much to save me." And lo, there it was, having its usual effect on poor, unsuspecting royalty.

"Not knowing who I am is kinda the point, bruv." Eggsy leaned forward and patted the boy's hand reassuringly. "But you should know that your father loves you very much. And agrees with you, but you didn't hear that from me." 

Sayed nodded and ducked his head, blushing fetchingly. "I know he does. It makes me sad that reform in my country should only come as a result of his death and my taking the throne."

"You never know. This whole business was quite an eye-opener, I think. Just...be careful about it. Be smart. Work in what you can, when you can. You can do a lot more than you think." Eggsy knew the boy was very smart, just from reading the translations of his letters home to his father making incredibly eloquent pleas for reform. 

_Eggsy Unwin, royal advisor. Have to add that to me CV._

"You are very wise for someone so young." Sayed fidgeted then leaned over the small space separating them. "How long is the flight going to be?" 

Eggsy grinned. The kid was rather adorable in his utter lack of artifice. He probably thought he was being terribly smooth. "Not long enough, handsome, so sit back and relax, yeah?"

"Are you quite done, or do I need to re-route the chopper so you can fuck him?" Merlin did not sound happy in his earpiece. 

"Jealous?" he murmured, knowing the chopper would drown it out. He thought it was kind of sweet, actually.

"Angry. This is a mission, not a fucking date, Galahad." Okay, there was nothing sweet about that tone, and it hit Eggsy like a punch in the gut.

"I...I wasn't...wouldn't..." How could Merlin honestly think he was being serious?

"We'll talk when you get back." 

Since both his agent and the package were secure, Merlin cut the line, leaving Eggsy to stew for six long hours of dropping off the prince, flying home, debriefing and showering. Eggsy wished he could call Harry for advice in dealing with Merlin, but he wouldn't put this on Harry right now. No, it was his problem to solve. 

Maybe Merlin had calmed down? Surely he had. 

Still, Eggsy sidled into Merlin's office like a naughty child, closing the door behind him. "Hey. Look, I'm really sorry I was flirting, I would never, ever have done anything about it. He was just adorable and scared and it was making him calm down and..."

"And I'm not interested in excuses. You'll have plenty of opportunities to flirt on missions when that's within the mission parameters. Showing interest in someone else...Eggsy, that's very hurtful to have to hear." Merlin's mouth was set in a thin line and his eyes were hard. 

"Are you taking the piss right now? Or are you actually insecure?" It has to be the former, come on.

"Are you actually a slut or do we just call you that for fun?" Merlin looked like he regretted those words, but only for a few moments before his anger resurfaced.

Eggsy, on the other hand, felt like he was living in opposite world. He'd sort of thought that, if anything at all, Merlin would get a little turned on listening to a bit of harmless flirting. "Merlin...come on. What, do you want my numbers or somethin'? How can I prove I'll never cheat on you?"

"Sure. Why not? Let's hear 'em. How many people have you fucked, Eggsy Unwin?"

"'Cos that's all us low-class bastards do, is fuck and live off the dole, yeah? All right, let's see. Lost my virginity at fourteen, to a girl. That's five girls in ten years. Fifteen blokes. One Dean. I personally don't include him in my own count, but maybe you think I should, so let's add him in. Sixteen blokes, including the two of you, and Wright." Was that even a lot? It hadn't felt like a lot before now, but now Eggsy felt ashamed. And angry, best not to forget angry. 

Merlin leaned back, hips against the edge of his desk, anger deflated. "That was an unfair question, Eggsy."

"Damn right it was. This whole thing has been unfair. Look, I get it's hard for you to just be a voice in my ear while I faff about nearly getting killed and flirting with pretty princes. I get that, I really do. But everything these last months, all of it, god, don't you get that I love you?" Eggsy wrapped his arms around his midsection.

"You weren't acting like you had two men at home you love," Merlin said, more gently this time.

"I can't be that person out there, now can I? That person is soft and sappy and would get killed in no time. I think it was you that taught us about separating our personal lives from our work at all cost? Why be angry with me because I learned the lesson?" Eggsy remembered Harry talking about how Merlin used to get terribly jealous, back in the days when things were new. 

"The 'you' that fucks like a demon's possessing you is soft and sappy now?" Merlin raised his eyebrows, and some of the tension drained out of the room. 

"I feel like this is some kind of a rite of passage to being in a relationship with you. You and Harry did this all those years ago, yeah?" Inwardly, Eggsy was a little pleased and a little dismayed simultaneously at that description of his prowess in bed. 

"Yeah, we did. I did. And all these years later, I still hate hearing him flirt when he doesn't have to. I can't apologise for that." Or rather, he won't. 

"Mm. Well, then. He's a big flirt, too. I'm not surprised. He was sure flirting with me--were you angry when he was doing that?"

"...a bit. Until I saw what he saw and wanted what he wanted." 

Jesus. "You're angry a fair bit of the time, then, aren't you?"

"Helplessness breeds anger, at least for me. I know I do the most good for Kingsman right where I am, but it doesn't make it easy." Always listening, never being able to do a goddamned thing. Trusting that his lovers' near-supernatural ability to kill things would always bring them back alive.

"Do you think you can admit that all this was bollocks? Because it was bollocks? I would never have touched that kid, not in a million years, not if he stripped bare in the chopper and begged me." Eggsy was still smarting, but he was ready for this fight to be over. He was exhausted, muscles like jelly from the mission, and all he wanted was his bloody rack time. 

"I know you wouldn't have. I do." There was a long pause. "I'm sorry I blew up at you."

"I'm sorry you weren't just having me on about being angry." Eggsy ran a hand through his hair. "No, that's...not fair, either. I accept your apology. And now, I need a bed worse than I need oxygen." 

Relief washed over Merlin's face. "Are you going home to sleep?"

"Nah, I'm just gonna go grab a bunk in the barracks. Be a mate and don't flood them or nothin', yeah?" 

"Yeah." Merlin reached out for Eggsy and pulled him, unresisting, into an embrace. "I'm just...you're here and in one piece. I don't take that for granted anymore, at least I'm trying very hard not to." After a moment, Eggsy's arms went around Merlin's neck and he snuggled in, half-asleep on his feet. 

 

"I'm gonna fall over, babe. See you later? At Harry's?" 

"At Harry's." 

**

Harry was bored and peevish. Peevishly bored. It was a small mercy that he could at least pace or he may have gone quite mad. The second surgery was an entire ten days ago, and his men hadn't been by in ages. Oh, they were working, yes, very important, democracy and freedom in the Middle East, all that, but he was lonely. And bored. And he had some fantastic news. So fantastic that he was not about to share it via text with Merlin to pass along to Eggsy over comms. Hmph.

Eggsy was the first one in, bearing an armload of books and a new board game for them to play. "Harry!" It obviously made him so happy to see Harry pacing about and not in bed that Harry immediately lost the peevish boredom in a wave of affection. 

"Indeed. Here, let me help you, love." He took half the books and set them down on the side table before pulling Eggsy in for a rather fierce hug. The younger man looked exhausted, and he can't have slept much since getting back in country. 

"Thought it'd be a few hours before you came back to me," Harry murmured into Eggsy's soft hair. 

"Couldn't sleep. And I wanted to see you, yeah? It's been too long." He tipped his head up, and Harry took advantage of the obvious desire for a kiss. A nice, deep, minute-long one, because Harry wanted to, and Eggsy was eminently kissable. 

"The mission went well," Harry murmured against Eggsy's lips. His lover was here, and he couldn't see a scratch on him, or feel any wince from the rather ardent embrace. 

"Yeah, I got the prince off to his father. Nice kid, I think we made the right call. He'll be a good ruler." There was something in Eggsy's voice that Harry didn't like. Usually, Eggsy was so exuberant over a job well done, but this time he was subdued.

"Did something happen? Are you hurt?" Harry just released Eggsy and lifted his shirt, showing off a few light bruises where his suit had bounced off bullets. Barely anything. 

"No, no...look, I just bollocksed it up in the chopper afterward, and Merlin got upset. It's all right now, I think." Eggsy wove his way to the easy chair beside the bed and folded himself into it. 

Harry sat on the bed across from him. "Tell me." Because Harry had a feeling that he already knew, and honestly, Merlin and his rampant insecurities. You'd think he'd outgrow them. 

"The prince was sort of adorable, and flirty, and I flirted back." Eggsy shrugged. "Didn't mean nothin', it was just...y'know me. It's sorta what I do. But it really got to Merlin."

"Well, I did tell you we'd had to fight this fight almost twenty years ago, and he doesn't like it to this day if I get flirty. Merlin's got a bit of a curse, you know--he likes the flirty ones, but can't handle it when we flirt." 

"But if we stopped..." Eggsy could see where this is going, and it was a bit tiresome.

"We wouldn't be the men he loves anymore. What did he say to you, sweetheart?" Hopefully it was just a mild snit.

"Well...it may have got down to me giving him my numbers to either prove or disprove that I'm actually a slut. I have no idea if the number was high or low, but I told him it wasn't counting Dean but was counting the two of you and Wright." The anal penetration threshold or something. 

"Oh, bloody hell. He'd better not go comparing you to me." Harry rubbed his hand over his face, pleasantly surprised when it didn't hurt. "He was my first, and outside the job, he's been my only, save for a small handful of people we've brought home together over the years." 

"Fuck, I am a complete tart." Funny how it never felt that way till you heard someone else's tale of relative virtue in comparison.

"Nonsense. What on earth is wrong with enjoying sex and having it as long as no one gets hurt? Eggsy, when I met Merlin, I wasn't a normal young man in the slightest. I hated myself through and through, including my apparently desperate need for cock." His mouth quirked a little and he reached out to take Eggsy's hands in his. "You were a healthy youngster behaving in a healthy manner, and don't let Merlin the closet prude make you think otherwise." 

"I am not a prude." Merlin had crept into the room, and was leaning against the door frame. "But I am a twat." 

"C'mere." Eggsy tilted his head to include the general 'over here' region encompassing the bed, the chair and Harry. "You're not a twat, and I get that it's gotta be hard. I promise from now I'll do my absolute best to be friendly without being flirty." 

"I may as well ask you not to breathe." Merlin shook his head and took the other chair. "No, Eggsy, you're not the one who has to get a grip on your reactions, I am. And I am still incredibly sorry." 

"And I still forgive you." Eggsy smiled at them both, and Harry breathed an inward sigh of relief. If they were going to have this particular fight, best it be done with early and put to bed. "For the record, so you both know, I love you, and I will never, ever be with anyone of my own free will in any way other than the two of you, until you decide you don't want me anymore." 

_Oh, buggering fuck._

"We know that. God, you wouldn't even give up Kingsman when you thought you were about to be flattened by a train. You wouldn't cheat on us. But why would you think that there'll come a time when we just...wouldn't want you anymore?" It broke Harry's heart, knowing that such an ugly thought had been lurking around Eggsy's brain.

"Because I'm..." Eggsy gestured randomly at himself, pulling his hands free and searching for words. "I'm not one of you. I know you love me, but I'm the outsider, I'm...different. I'd have to be mad to think that this is forever."

Merlin sighed, clearly not pleased this topic had come up. "When will you get it through your head that you're not an outsider? And you're not just someone we're bringing home for a bit of fun? I love you. Harry loves you."

Harry stepped in to speak for himself. "Look, both of you. I have some news and I've made a decision and maybe it will help put this idea of yours to bed permanently, Eggsy. I get out of here tomorrow. I can go home." There may be other surgeries depending on his recovery, but they are down the road. "They're going to send the physio blokes and the occupational therapist and such to the house."

The look brightening both of their faces was enough to lift the strained mood. "That's amazing, Harry!" Eggsy enthused, grinning from ear to ear.

Merlin just smiled, the rare smile that went all the way to his eyes, and leaned over for a soft, brief kiss. "Good job the housekeeper was in today." 

"Now, here's the point, I suspect, where you think that 'home' is mine and Merlin's, and not yours. Am I wrong?" Harry looked at Eggsy, who squirmed a little under the scrutiny.

"No, you're not wrong. I mean, first I steal your house and put my family in it...and then I crash Merlin's, and you have to go back there or I have to kick out my family, or..." It was a mess.

"Bollocks," Harry said succinctly. "Merlin's is quite close enough to home for the moment. And by the way, I sincerely hope you put Mr. Pickle away before he scared the hell out of poor little Daisy." He had no idea why that made both of his men smile. 

"What do you mean 'for the moment'?" Eggsy asked, a second ahead of Merlin. 

"We're selling that townhouse, and buying a new flat closer to your family. One that is ours." Not just Harry's or Merlin's or Harry-and-Merlin's. "Your name on the deed, your life with us. If that's what you both want." 

Merlin grinned, but Eggsy just sat there for a very long time, brow creased as he processed that piece of news. "That's...a lot of expense and bother just for me, innit?"

"You may not believe this, darling, but sometimes I don't mind a bit of bother. Especially if it will make you believe that you belong with us. Forever." Harry stood up and pulled Eggsy into a tight embrace, more strength now in his arms than there had been since his shooting. He was solid, he was warm. And when Merlin came up behind him to encircle him as well, it was simple enough. He was home.

**

Soon enough, he was half-dressed and tucked into Harry's arms, dead asleep. Merlin sat on the bed and stroked the younger man's short, soft hair. "I nearly fucked up everything," he murmured.

"Nearly, but you didn't. And god willing this time you'll finally learn that you have no reason, at all, to be jealous." Harry wrapped his arms around Eggsy just a bit tighter.

"You didn't see the prince. Ridiculous, feckless little thing with huge puppy eyes..." Merlin tsked and shook his head, but he was smiling. "It does seem completely ridiculous now."

"I think if we know anything about our little one here, it's that sweet little naifs are not his preferred sexual partners," Harry said acerbically, since neither he nor Merlin had ever really fit that description.

"Had you really been planning out that move with the new flat, or did you just think that up on the spot?" Merlin leaned down to nuzzle Eggsy's cheek, and really, the younger man slept like the dead. 

"It was a bit on the spot. Brilliant, don't you think? We'll call an estate agent after we get home tomorrow. I'm thinking something with a garden, where Daisy could play if she comes over." Harry Hart, giant softie. These days, at least. 

"Do you ever think he'll be able to tell his mum what's going on?" It would make things so much easier to have her blessing, although the chances of that seemed almost nil. She probably could accept her son as gay, but in a relationship with two older men? That was a stretch for any parent.

"He might just try it. I mean, his mum hardly has a moral leg to stand on," Merlin dropped his voice even more when he said that. "What with the prince she married." 

"We need to get on that whole 'wiping from existence' business," Harry tsked. 

"Indeed. Soon." Merlin slipped off his shoes and crawled into bed on Harry's other side, scooting him to the middle and Eggsy to the edge, even though he reached around to stroke the younger man's flank. 

Harry laughed softly. "We cannot keep our hands off him, have you noticed?"

"Not our fault he's so...pettable." 

"M'heard...that.." Eggsy turned in Harry's arms, snuggled back into him arse-first and fell promptly right back asleep. 

**

The simple act of coming home was, it turned out, rather fraught with perils along the way. First came the incredibly thorough exam that cleared Harry for conditional discharge. Then there were arrangements about deliveries of various pieces of monitoring equipment that Harry was damned well sure he wasn't going to use and that Eggsy and Merlin promised he would. The physical and occupational therapists set a rigourous series of routine visits, and follow-up appointments were scheduled. 

In short, by the time they actually cleared the threshold, Harry was exhausted. Eggsy wrapped an arm around the older man's waist and helped him navigate up to bed while Merlin dealt with deliveries. 

One thing Harry was adamant about was that he would, by all the gods, sleep naked in his own bed on clean sheets and pyjamas be damned. His hair was still long, with just a small part shaved where they did the reconstruction and surgery. If you looked closely, you could see the titanium plate under the skin, but Eggsy thought it looked rather badass and liked to stroke his fingertips over it. 

Apparently, there was nothing at all Harry Hart could do to be ugly to the men who loved him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I love you guys. You keep the ideas flowing, and I love your comments. <3 to infinity. If you want some snippets (and previews of upcoming works in this series) hop over to my tumblr (SongAboutExiles). I've already published titles, pairings and summaries of all the various parts.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. Their relationship gets consummated and then consummated some more. Eggsy talks things over with his BFF.

Eggsy blinked sleepily at the morning sunlight slanting through the windows, muzzily aware that he was warm, so warm, and that everything smelled wonderful. There was skin under his cheek, skin along his back, and maybe it should have been awkward or strange, but it was heaven. 

He was in Merlin's arms, with Harry curled behind, one hand possessive on his hip under the duvet. Harry had been utterly exhausted by the trip home and all the bother, so all that had happened last night was a late dinner of soup and sandwiches and a very early bedtime. Harry ranted, half-asleep already, that there was no buggery going on whatsoever in this bed and that was a criminal shame, but he was out before he could properly finish the sentence. 

Harry's knee was scooted up between Eggsy's knees in an untidy sprawl, and Merlin had him in some kind of kung fu death grip like he always did when they slept together. It was all so sweet, but damned if it wasn't making him horny as fuck. He wriggled back with his hips to find Harry's morning erection just, well, just right **there** , and he snuck a hand down to wrap around Merlin's. 

It was Merlin who clocked it first. "Mmm, good morning," he said, voice sleep-rough and brogue deep. That voice made Eggsy shiver every time, and he stroked Merlin's cock in a lazy corkscrew. "I think we should fuck Harry, don't you?"

"Oh god, yes," Eggsy whispered back. "It wouldn't be disappointing, would it, for our first time to be like this?" Slow, warm, morning sex instead of clothes-ripping passion. But hey they were already naked, yeah? So why wait to get dressed just to get 'em ripped off again?

"Fuck no. It's perfect." To illustrate, Merlin brought Eggsy in for a deep, messy kiss that went right to his gut. "It's the only way he actually likes to wake up."

"I heard that," Harry mumbled against Eggsy's neck, finishing the words with a light bite and a suckling kiss just at the tender join of flesh. Eggsy's whole body shuddered with the realisation that both his men were kissing him at once. In fact, it was so good he squirmed onto his back and wrapped an arm around each of their necks, trading Merlin's mouth for Harry's. The different ways they kissed, the different tastes of their mouths, textures of their tongues drove him mad. 

And three-way kisses, while sloppy and slick and wet by their very nature, were the absolute loveliest thing of all. 

Merlin nudged at Eggsy until he slithered over Harry's body, the kiss breaking up and getting fractured again when Eggsy realised his mouth was right at nipple-level on Harry's chest. They had no time at all to explore the only other time they'd fucked, and he wasn't wasting this chance to wrap his mouth around a small pink nipple and suck nice and hard and slow. Merlin chuckled just ahead of Harry's almost violent reaction of bucking hips and curses and legs spreading wide, head darting over to the other nipple to mirror Eggsy's actions. 

"Oh, fuck..for fuck's sake, someone had better get in me soon..." Harry moaned and grabbed two heads at once.

"Holy hell, you like that, dontcha love?" Eggsy whispered, going back to suckling nice and hard while his hand slid down Harry's belly to meet Merlin's, also headed south. His hand stopped at Harry's hard prick, and Merlin's slid lower, rubbing over Harry's pucker and making the poor man twitch and jerk under them. 

"I...yes, I bloody well do..." Harry was a bit useless at the moment, and it was about the sweetest thing Eggsy had ever seen. He looked over at Merlin to find the same besotted expression in his eyes. 

"I think it's high time that Eggsy fucked you and your perfect little hole, hm?" Merlin rasped, lifting his fingers to suck them slick and then sliding back down to press two inside Harry, who took them almost gratefully. 

Harry and Eggsy groaned at the same time, and Eggsy could feel his tremulous control sliding sideways as he pressed his throbbing dick against Harry's hip. "And while you do, Eggsy, I'm going to fuck you, yeah?" Merlin darted over and bit right over the little bruise that Harry had left earlier.

That was it for Eggsy, just bloody **it**. The idea of it alone, the impending reality of it finally happening, that **bite** for fuck's sake, it all made him cry out sharply and come all over Harry's belly. When his lovers realised what had happened, they moved to put him in the middle again, hold him close. It was easy to forget sometimes, as wise as Eggsy could be, that he was still a very young man. A very young, very embarrassed man. 

"Jesus, fuck, I'm so sorry, I just...I couldn't stop..." Eggsy was bright red, and stammering, and generally wishing the bed would swallow him whole. Here he was, ruining everything.

"No, no..." Harry and Merlin spoke together, trying to shut down the embarrassment with kisses. "God, it's sexy as fuck that you want us so much..." Harry whispered into his mouth, swallowing the whimper as Merlin slid down to press the younger man's legs open, tongue finding the pink furl of muscle and laving across it. 

Eggsy melted into them, forgetting to be humiliated under the new onslaught of pleasure and novel sensation of being unconditionally wanted and loved. Harry's mouth moved from his downward, offering soft swipes of tongue against the overly sensitive head of Eggsy's cock, enough to cause hitching gasps of pleasure, but no pain. In no time he was hard again, and Merlin had worked two fingers into him alongside his questing tongue. 

"Want a taste," Harry murmured, and Merlin lifted his head to kiss the other man deeply, tongue invading deep to be suckled. Poor Eggsy felt every bit of it, too, since they were right over the head of his cock, breath and spit and lewd, slow thrusting. _Fuck now, that is proper gorgeous._ It got even better when they actually put Eggsy's prick between their mouths, tongues pressing at the slick, exposed tip until Eggsy's back arched and he was dangerously close a second time.

Only this time they noticed, and they backed away, Merlin pumping his fingers in and out of Eggsy's arse. Eggsy slumped back down and tugged at Harry wordlessly until the other man straddled his chest, offering his own arse up for Eggsy's tongue and fingers. He was only too happy to dive right in, greedy tongue tasting what his prying fingers opened up and finding, just like Merlin said, a perfect, pink little hole desperate to be filled. 

It was sensory overload, but in the best possible way. His lovers were everywhere, his body was invaded and invading in the sweetest of all possible battles. Forget the 'could be,' this was already an addiction he'd never even try to shake. Harry leaned forward just a little to capture Merlin's cock with his mouth, swallowing around the length and letting it into his throat. Good fucking god was it hot, the little he could see of Harry Hart giving head. 

Merlin fumbled about till he found some lube, and then those maddening fingers were back inside him, slick and deft, and the older man pressed the tube into his hand when he waved it vaguely downward. Harry was so hungry that Eggsy wagered he could take the man just like this, but he didn't even want the possibility of pain. That's not what this was, and he wouldn't go hurting Harry or Merlin for anything. 

He slicked up his fingers and slid three into Harry's welcoming body, leaving him nice and wet and open. Harry pulled off Merlin's cock and growled, "Now. For fuck's sake, before I'm the one coming all over myself." 

It was a measure of how secure Eggsy felt right now that he could laugh and gently swat Harry's arse. "Then move down, love." He spread his thighs wide for Merlin, who waited with surprising patience for Harry to turn and sink down onto Eggsy's cock. As soon as Harry was settled, Merlin ran a hand up Harry's back and bit lightly at the nape of his neck. There was no need to open up Eggsy's thighs anymore or tilt his hips up, since the younger man was already well on display. 

Merlin pulled down till Eggsy's hips were resting half on his lap, finding the right angle to push inside, meeting no resistance because Eggsy had gone stock still, breathing hard through his nose as he tried to process what he was feeling. Nope, not working. Hot, tight Harry around his cock, Merlin in him so far he could practically taste the man, and him in the middle. He couldn't help thinking that his whole body was a vessel, a living creature existing only to pleasure and be pleasured in return, and that he was the luckiest creature in the fucking universe to have this with the men he loved so damn much.

The urge to move finally became too much, and Merlin thrust in deeper, jarring both Harry and Eggsy, urging them along until the three of them found a rhythm. It was not a neat, perfect rhythm--Eggsy had little leverage to move, and Harry was close to overwhelmed himself--but it was still exactly right. Merlin reached around to hold Harry close with one arm, and then sent his other hand questing for Eggsy's, twining up their fingers. All Eggsy could see when he looked up was their entwined bodies, all he could feel was them. 

It was shockingly quiet in the stillness of the morning, gasps, low moans, breathed out names, nothing more. Eggsy's free hand dropped down to Harry's jutting cock, stroking it steadily because none of this was for teasing, and he was so so close. They all were.

Eggsy lost control first, body twisting up in an orgasm that left him utterly cored, rocking back on Merlin's cock and up into Harry, who promptly lost it in turn, spurting over Eggsy's fist and rocking forward for balance when his fragile world spun. Merlin murmured a few choice 'fucks' into Harry's sweaty shoulder as he pulled Eggsy down one last time and filled him up. 

Both Merlin and Eggsy barely remembered to catch Harry when he went down, suddenly, viciously exhausted and cradled between them. Eggsy didn't realise until that moment, gathering Harry up into his arms with Merlin right there, both of them looking at Harry, that he was crying. He swiped at his cheeks with one hand, then nuzzled at Harry's cheek, then Merlin's. "Love you, Harry. Love you, Merlin."

"Beautiful...Christ." Harry wasn't good for much, but he managed that and a fuzzy, "Love you both. So much." 

Which left Merlin, who smiled one of his rarest smiles and murmured, "Love you, Eggsy. Love you, Harry." 

Merlin propped himself up on his elbow and watched how the younger man curled so carefully around Harry. Eggsy studied his face, looking for the slightest hint of jealousy and finding none at all. In fact, Merlin leaned over to kiss his cheeks, licking away the tears and then kissing his mouth. "You two look lovely."

Eggsy's lips pressed together and then into a small, cheeky smile. "We look pretty damn good the lot of us." 

"I dare say you're right. I'm going to go make breakfast. Our man here needs to eat. Sex and food, the only two things he'll wake up cheerfully for." Merlin chuckled and kissed them both, earning himself a half-hearted sort of non-committal noise from Harry, who turned over and burrowed into the source of warmth that was Eggsy at the moment. 

"He's like a lizard or somethin'." Eggsy grinned and got comfortable, since he was apparently going to be Harry's designated pillow for some time to come.

"Ah, you've discovered our nefarious secret. We're all aliens." Merlin laughed softly and crawled out of bed, casting about for a pair of his or Harry's pyjama bottoms and only finding Eggsy's, which would be far too small. 

"Yours are over here." Merlin found them and slid them on, then left his two men to doze off again. 

**

It was the kind of Sunday that was essentially a blur of snogging, eating, sleeping, and watching crap telly. Harry was in no way up for round two and Merlin and Eggsy were feeling particularly satiated anyway. The sheets got changed halfway through the day thanks to excessive crumbs and the earlier bout of sweaty sex. Showers were taken, the three of them crowding in and making sure Harry didn't fall, which produced indignation until the making out started. 

The most activity accomplished for the rest of the day was Eggsy venturing forth to fetch JB from (ostensibly) his place, but only after promising Daisy he'd bring the dog back the next day. He missed the mutt, and JB's snoring from the foot of the bed seemed like the perfect counterpoint to a lazy day.

"Why the pug?" Merlin asked, absently scritching JB's neck.

"Thought it was a bulldog. The fuck I know about purebred dogs?" Eggsy grinned, happy with the fact that he chose the way he did, even if he had just fallen into it arse-first. JB was worth all the bother and the carrying around and the nearly getting expelled from Kingsman.

And the sound of his lovers laughing was worth everything.

**

"Eggsy, what part of 'live fire exercise' confused you, exactly?" Roxy stripped off her gear, one ear still ringing as she stood naked in front of the mirror, surveying the latest in scrapes and bruises like another person would examine the latest in spring couture. 

"Worked out okay, dinnit?" Eggsy did the same, grinning. They were so used to each other at this point that it was like being naked with your sister--a little weird but not sexual at all. "Sorry I fired over your shoulder like that, Rox."

"Eh, I suspect I'll live." She turned to look at him, noticing the love bite on his neck that she surely did not put there during the exercise. "Eggsy, you're glowing. Seriously, you just got shot at multiple times, and yet you are glowing. I know you're not up the duff so you should spill. Now."

Shit, the moment of truth. When you work with a bunch of spies, someone will notice something at some point, and it had to be his best bloody friend. Okay, then. _Let's see how this goes._ "I'm not gonna insult you by asking if you can keep a secret. I'm gonna ask you if you **will** keep a secret."

"For you? Of course I will." They wove a bit with exhaustion on the way back to the open showers. "Who are you fucking?"

"Well, it's not just fucking." Eggsy chewed a bit at his lower lip. "Do you think three people can be in a stable and, y'know, committed relationship?"

"Um, well. I haven't given it much thought. I don't see why not, just seems like it'd be a lot of really hard work. One person's quite enough to handle." She looked at him sideways as she stepped under the hot spray. "Eggsy, what have you got yourself into?"

"Technically speaking, both Harry and Merlin, at various times. And together." Eggsy looked over at her, teeth digging into his bottom lip. "We're...um. It's serious." 

"But they're practically an old married couple...and you're saying you all three fuck? And it's not just about the sex?" A lot of people would probably be surprised at the mouth on posh Roxy, but Eggsy knew her too well to be surprised. "And you're sure it's not just about the sex? You're not over there pining are you?"

"No, no pining. It started with me and Merlin, but I was mad about Harry even before...what happened to him. And now that Harry's back, yeah. We actually love each other. We're buying a flat, the three of us together." There may never be wedding rings and ceremonies, but that was as close as you could get, really. 

"A flat? That is serious. And you're obviously over the moon." She lathered up her sweaty hair and rinsed it out. "In that case, as long as they treat you right, I'm on board. You're too bloody happy for me not to be happy for you." 

"You're the first person I've told." Eggsy beamed and started soaping up, faintly amazed at the places grime could creep into. 

"I wouldn't spread it around too much, at least at first. Kingsman will know when you all three buy a flat together, but till then...well, you should probably talk to them about who does and doesn't know, yeah?" 

"Yeah, I get it. I just had to tell me best friend now, didn't I?" Eggsy finished rinsing the soap off and stepped off to the side for a towel while she was still conditioning her hair. "I had to tell someone."

"I'm glad you did tell me. I mean, if for no other reason, so I can ask salacious questions like...what's it like? How do you do it? Who's the top?" She grinned and worked out a particularly large knot in her hair.

"I think the right answer to that question is that a gentleman never tells," Eggsy answered primly, although there was nothing prim in the wicked gleam in his eyes. 

"So the answer to my first question is probably 'bloody spectacular.'" After her hair was done, she washed the rest of herself quickly. "And I'd guess the answer to the second is 'every way we possibly can'." She handed Eggsy a wide toothed comb and turned around, wrapping a towel around her while he combed through her damp hair. "And the third is pretty much 'whomever feels like it.'"

"Hmm, you've nailed two out of three, not bad, Rox." He patiently worked the comb through her hair, letting the slick strands slide over his fingers as he went. It was soothing. "Merlin is so the top," he whispered, grinning when she giggled. 

All right, so maybe he had a way to go on the road to being a true gentleman.

**

Eggsy burst cheerfully into the kitchen several nights later, to find Merlin and Harry in the midst of making dinner. "Sorry I'm so late, handsome men. One of the IT blokes got lost out on the live fire range, and I had to go find him before he got his fool head shot off." 

Merlin had his hands covered in raw chicken, but Harry came over to kiss him hello. "Bloody idiot. Was he going for a smoke? They do that sometimes." 

"Mmm, but he's safe and sound now. And I'm just gonna go up and change, and then I'll help you out with dinner, yeah? I gotta bring more clothes over." Eggsy kissed Harry one more time, then went over to lean up and kiss Merlin on the cheek.

"Or just bring them all over," Merlin said, looking over at him. "Even the hideous bits, if you must." 

"Oh, I think I must," Eggsy smiled mischievously. He'd bring the gaudy tracksuits, just because it would mortify Harry every time he saw them hanging in the closet. In truth, he'd sort of lost his taste for them, but they didn't need to know that. "Since the estate agent has her work cut out for her finding us a flat, it might be a while, so...yeah. I'll bring it all over at the weekend." 

He bounded up the stairs and came up empty on even remotely clean pairs of jeans, deciding instead to go for pyjama bottoms and a tee shirt. No, no luck there, either. Thankfully, the housekeeper was coming tomorrow and clean laundry would be his. He hung up his suit carefully and reflected how quickly he'd become a privileged little git relying on the housekeeper for fresh laundry. 

Naked, Eggsy padded out to raid Harry's drawers for something to wear, since Merlin's would be far too big. He rifled through a stack of neatly folded cotton pyjamas until his fingers brushed against something...silky. Slinky, even. 

He unceremoniously dumped the pyjamas on the bed and went back to the drawer, mouth agape at the absolutely gorgeous lingerie. The gorgeous, handmade silk lingerie that could only be Harry's. And while he knew there were things he'd discover about his lovers in time, this was just. too. good. _Christ, Harry, you're the one full of surprises._

That's when he knew exactly what he had to do, dinner be damned. 

When he came downstairs, he was swathed in Harry's burgundy bathrobe, which was big enough that it hid his erection, and his outfit, and the lube he'd stashed in the pocket. Eggsy made a stop at the stereo, and found something soulful and rhythmic and danceable, turning it on low. 

"Took you long enough," Merlin said, just as he turned the heat off on the chicken and Harry drained the pasta. "It's all ready." For all the gruff words, he was smiling when he turned around to look at the younger man. "What, couldn't you find anything to wear?"

Eggsy grinned and shrugged, till Harry turned to take a look. "I didn't find what I went up looking to wear, no. All my stuff's dirty." Maybe Harry and Merlin both should have clocked his meaning at that point, but they didn't. "Dinner's safe to leave, yeah?"

"For a bit, yes," Harry agreed, suddenly a bit baffled. 

"Then you should both come in here and sit on the sofa." Eggsy turned and walked out of the kitchen, sure they'd be following. They were. "Nice and close together." They did.

"Is something wrong, Eggsy? Do you need to tell us something?" Harry was a bit nervous now, too, because what if they'd done something wrong?

"I need to tell you..." He untied the robe but kept it closed, letting it slip off one shoulder to reveal a thin black strap. "That if you wanted to keep the frilly bits a secret you should have hidden 'em better." 

"Holy fuck," Merlin murmured, and Harry looked a bit stricken and more than a bit intrigued all at once. 

"Mmm, I sincerely hope so." The robe hit the floor and their jaws followed. Eggsy had found a midnight black camisole with lace insets that would have fit Harry perfectly but looked loose on his smaller frame, and a pair of lace knickers that matched and barely contained his hard cock. The knickers sat low on his hips, leaving a broad expanse of muscled, flat belly exposed. 

He prowled forward to Harry first, straddling his lap and rolling his hips, reaching out with one hand to bring Merlin close enough to kiss, open-mouthed and filthy. It was a little-known fact that Eggsy could dance, but it was close enough to gymnastics that he found it was just moving your hips to a rhythm you could hear, instead of one you couldn't.

Harry's hands framed the younger man's hips, holding them tight as they moved over his covered erection. The anxiety seemed to have utterly fled in the face of his arousal, and he leaned in to bite up the side of Eggsy's neck, licking at the corner of his mouth while he kissed Merlin. 

Merlin growled and fucked his mouth, tongue rough and insistent, and Eggsy's hand reached out to knead his prick through his trousers while he maintained an effortless, lazy, near-boneless figure-eight on Harry's lap. Harry freed up a hand to tease the outline of his cock in the knickers with his thumb, rubbing at the tip and letting the precome soak the fragile fabric. 

Finally, Merlin had had enough of waiting, and he just reached out and plucked Eggsy's smaller body off Harry's lap and sat him down on his, facing away so he could watch that perfect arse gyrate and rub maddeningly, the straps of the camisole falling over broad shoulders as he moved and moaned at the new sensation. His fingers trailed up and down Eggsy's spine, over silk and skin, then teased at his cleft before dipping inside to find a very slick, very open little hole. 

"Nnnh...s'what really took so long upstairs," Eggsy moaned and reached down to viciously grip the base of his cock through the fabric to stave off an orgasm. What these men did to him, Jesus fucking Christ. 

"Oh, Harry, he's so open for us. What a perfect little slut, yes?" The sound of ripping fabric was loud in the room, and it made both Eggsy and Harry groan. Merlin hadn't just ripped the knickers off, oh no. He ripped a hole from the elastic to the crotch, just enough to expose Eggsy's arsehole.

"Perfect, beautiful little slut," Harry agreed, getting to his feet and coming around in front of Eggsy, unbuckling his belt and taking down his flies and gripping Eggsy's hair, urging him to take the rock-hard shaft into his mouth. 

Eggsy was in heaven, and he had a feeling that it was about to get even better when he heard Merlin's zipper behind him. Once again he was picked up and moved, this time down onto Merlin's cock. He had to struggle to keep Harry in his mouth with the movement, but he was too greedy to let it go for a moment. 

Merlin gripped the silk fabric of the camisole in one fist and thrust up with his hips, and the position and angle made it feel like his cock was even bigger than it was, spearing deep and at a whole new angle that made Eggsy moan as he started a deep, decadent rhythm on Harry's prick. Harry and Merlin locked eyes over his back, and he was sure that they were up to something. Luckily, he was up for anything.

It was still a bit of a surprise when Harry pulled out of his mouth and wrapped his arms around him, almost yanking him off Merlin's prick and pushing him over the back of the sofa so he could take the other man's place, shoving in deep and hard and perfect. Wherever the line might be, and he wasn't even sure it existed, they were nowhere near it. Eggsy couldn't even wrap his mind around how turned on he was being their pretty little plaything, so he didn't try. He just rode the sensation.

And Harry rode him in turn, and it would seem fisting black silk was a universal turn-on for both of this men because Harry did the same thing, using it to pull him down onto his cock every time he thrust in. All Eggsy could do was spread his thighs wide and cant his hips up and back like a proper whore. A glance to Merlin showed the older man stroking his prick, and Eggsy stared, mesmerised, while Harry fucked him.

After a few minutes, no more, Merlin growled and grabbed him again, pulling him away from Harry and back onto his cock. Harry growled right back but tolerated it--barely. Eggsy's eyes rolled back in his head and he was just lost. Right on the edge of orgasm, riding that edge hard and holding on. He wasn't sure for what.

"Ah, fuck, pretty little thing..." Merlin held his hips bruisingly still while he rutted up into him, and within moments the other man was coming, hard, balls deep and filling him up nice and proper. Harry barely waited his turn before pulling Eggsy into his arms and and manoeuvering him over the couch cushions again. 

He shoved the front of Eggsy's knickers down, freeing his cock while he buried himself and rode the younger man hard. The top in Harry was rarely in evidence, but he could certainly find that side of himself if the situation warranted. This situation definitely warranted. "Fucking perfect, sweetest little arse...I can feel Merlin inside you. Think you've had enough?"

"N...no...please, no...you, too..." Harry was angling right for his prostate, and Eggsy dug his nails satisfyingly deep into the leather of the sofa cushion, rutting back. 

 

Harry knew a thing or two about taking risks, and he took one, a big one when he slapped Eggsy's arse hard, once, and ordered, "You first." 

Before he even realised it was happening, Eggsy was crying out hoarsely and spurting all over the sofa, arse contracting tight around Harry's cock and drawing out his orgasm just as quickly. Harry's stamina must be improving, because at least he didn't fall over. When they were both spent, Eggsy found himself being moved once more, curled up against Merlin's broad, still-clothed chest while Harry sprawled in front of him, legs tangling with Merlin's as he stroked Eggsy's back.

Eggsy found himself shaking, his mind a riot. That slap had been the thing that sent him over, it was so good, and Harry was kissing his cheeks and his jawline, murmuring how much he was loved. Maybe he could trust them with that part of himself, that fucking ironclad kink of his, because look how sweet they were. 

Harry murmured, "Sorry, love, didn't talk to you first, just happened, I know I said we wouldn't..."

"Christ, glad you did. Fuck..." Eggsy managed a muzzy grin, and it looked like Harry's risk turned out just fine. 

Merlin stroked his fingertips over the reddened bit of flesh lightly. "Then we definitely need to talk about renegotiating some of your boundaries, hm? But not right now. You've had quite enough for one evening." 

Eggsy had to laugh. "Yes, Sir." Merlin was adorable when he got all authoritative on him and Harry, because Eggsy knew it came from love and not some arsehole desire to control them. 

"Good god, don't start calling him 'sir', his ego's bigger than his dick already," Harry stage-whispered into his ear, just before Merlin pulled him into a kiss. 

"So...is dinner wrecked? I'm starving. Also, I want to know all about why Harry has a whole bloody lingerie wardrobe I knew nothing about." Eggsy's stomach growled and Harry petted it absently.

"It should be fine. Let me out of this muddle and I'll go reheat everything." Merlin wriggled til he was free then tossed a blanket over the both of them before heading into the kitchen. 

"Oh, I'll tell you. Just...I think I need to be rather drunk first." Harry blushed, and Eggsy thought it was unfairly charming. 

"You know anything you tell me, love, I ain't gonna judge you. But it'll be worth it to see you drunk." Seeing either of them drunk would be quite a lot of fun, Eggsy wagered, as would the drunken, messy sex that was sure to ensue. 

"I was wrong, dinner's a bust." Merlin looked at the two of them from the kitchen door. "Saved the chicken but the pasta's congealed. Thai?"

"Sorry." 

"No you're not, and neither are we, so hush." Merlin grinned and went to get the takeaway menu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys...seriously. All the love. And all the sex, in this chapter, but then they've waited forever, so I think they deserve it.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michelle and Eggsy have it out. Daisy comes to stay. Our threesome finally gets drunk enough for the revelations to flow. Merlin does very bad things, and does them very well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I should warn that I do not like Michelle. I did not like her in the movie, I just...no. I'm a mom, and just...no. You don't leave your baby screaming in a crib while you get drunk. You don't stay with a man who threatens your son with a meat cleaver. You just don't. So yeah, she comes off as rather unsympathetic here. Not wholly, but mostly. Also, warnings for kink, kink and a little more kink, as well as disgusting cuteness.

"Mum!" Eggsy called out when he entered the front door, finding Daisy in the living room surrounded by a sea of toys without Michelle in evidence. He swung her up onto a hip and eventually found his mother in the kitchen, a mostly-empty bottle of wine on the counter next to her. "Jesus, Mum, you can't just leave her like that. There's not even covers on the plugs or nothin'." 

"What, and you're a parent now?" She rolled her eyes and took a long drink out of her glass. "You'll never be a parent at this rate, no matter how hard you keep trying." 

"That's...really? That's really what you're goin' with? Where's this even comin' from?" When he'd told her he had a boyfriend, she'd gone for a bit of a wobble but had come round fast enough. 

"You said you'd be by to pack up your clothes so you can move in with him, and that's us left behind, innit?" She flung out the accusation like a stone through the glass walls of her own house.

"Have I left you behind? Haven't I been by almost every day? I'm a grown man, mum, you can't expect me to stay home forever. I love ya, and I love Daisy, but you gotta know that's not how the world works." Eggsy was frustrated, and upset that Daisy had to hear this. He put her down in her high chair and started looking for a snack for her to distract her. 

"First I lost your father, then I lost Dean, and now I'm losing you! So you don't get to tell me not to be upset." If there was one thing Michelle Unwin hated and feared, it was being alone. 

"Did you just really say my father and me and fucking Dean in the same fucking sentence?!" That tore it.

"Don't you use that language with me!" She folded her arms over her chest and stuck out her chin defiantly.

"Okay, fine, but how can you compare us to that...that beast of a thing you dragged home from the pub?" It made him sick, and angry, and god the things she'd never known.

"He stood by me, didn't he? When I got pregnant with your sister he married me! Yeah, he was no bloody Royal Marine but they can't all be, now can they?" 

"Mum, were you blind all those years? He beat me, he beat you. And that's not the half of it." And he was **not** going to cry over that man for one more second, damn it.

"What are you going on about?" Michelle glanced at him sideways.

"He molested me. How can you not have known? Whenever you weren't around, or you were too drunk, he took what he wanted from me instead." Eggsy set his jaw, silently daring her to say she had no idea.

"Oh, come on! Eggsy, just because you've decided you're a queer doesn't mean everyone is! Dean was not into boys, not like you." There was so much in that statement that Eggsy didn't even know where to start to unpack it.

"Dean was into whatever he could get power over. You, me. Eventually, it would've been Daisy. Why the fuck can't you just be glad that you're away from him? That you have a nice life now?" One he'd paid in blood for.

"I think it's easy for you to take the piss about him when he's not here to defend himself!"

"Mum, please. Listen to yourself. He wouldn't defend himself. He'd beat me down or get his bunch of thugs to do it for him." Why talk when you can punch should have been on Dean's family crest. 

Michelle shook her head. "I think you just want someone to blame for the way you are."

"I'm not ashamed of the way I am. I'm in love, and I'm happy, and I'm being treated like a human being and not a punching bag. They fucking adore me." _Oh shit._

"They? What they? What kind of sick shit are you into now?" Michelle actually looked ill, but that didn't stop her from draining the rest of her wine glass. 

"They...like my two boyfriends. It's not sick, it's...it's wonderful." And this was going to go as badly as it could possibly go. Fuck pronouns anyway.

"So I'm supposed to just open up my arms for my son's two...'lovers.'" She actually did the air quote thing, which made Eggsy feel even more like he was trapped in a scene from a bad soap opera.

"Mum, I would like for you to accept it, but I know that ain't gonna happen. I'll keep that part of my life away from you. Just...whatever you do, don't go back to Dean. You can do so much better." Whatever else, he wouldn't ever, ever allow Daisy to be around that man. Never. 

"Yeah, they're just beatin' down my door up here in this posh neighbourhood! I guess the posh blokes just love you, don't they? Are you their bit of rough trade?"

"What I am, Mum, is theirs. And they're mine. We're really good together. Getting a flat and everything." It had become his go-to for 'This is serious business!'. 

"Don't you be thinkin' for a second that I'm gonna let your baby sister into that nest of vipers! She'll stay well clear of this flat of yours, and these men you're playin' house with." 

Out of all the things that Michelle could have said, that was the most hurtful. Eggsy had to admit now that he'd been deluding himself, thinking of playing with Daisy and JB in the garden. He blinked his eyes quickly against the tears that stung the corners. 

"How can you think I'd ever let anythin' bad happen to her?" It came out raw.

"Just being around that indecency is bad for her!" Never mind the drugs and the drink and the risk of being around Dean and his cronies. No, his loving household was indecent. 

"I can't stop you thinkin' that, and you won't change your mind unless you see how it really is. And you don't wanna do that. But tell me you're still letting her go to the school I found for her, yeah? It's the best. She deserves the best." Eggsy looked over at Daisy and his heart broke. It felt to him like she was still the wee thing crying her heart out in her cradle. 

"You're right about that. And you can still see her, just here. Always here." Michelle's stance softened, became less defensive. "I love you, Eggsy, I just can't agree with what you're turnin' into." 

"Right." Eggsy nodded slowly. "Yeah, okay. I'm gonna go upstairs and pack up the rest of my clothes. I...should I leave JB for Daisy?" As long as he was having his guts ripped out, might as well add one more organ. 

"She's awfully attached to the mutt, so yes. Leave him for her." Michelle seemed to soften, then, but Eggsy was still wary. "I'm just so sorry I failed you. I must have been a horrible mum for you to be where you are now."

"Look...no more, okay? I have a job I love, people I love who love me back, I can provide for you and D. Just leave it at that. I'll pack my things." Eggsy went over shakily to kiss Daisy on the top of the head and when she looked up at him leaving was the hardest thing in the world.

**

Harry was putting together tea when Eggsy arrived home via cab with his two suitcases of clothes. From the way they bulged, he obviously threw everything in there without regard for folding, which wasn't like him even before Kingsman. And if that didn't tell the older man something was wrong, there was always the look on his lover's face, like he'd been slapped.

"Hello, handsome," Eggsy said, leaving the two suitcases in the mud room inside the kitchen door. 

"What happened?" Harry cupped Eggsy's face, looked at both sides to see if he'd been literally slapped. "Something happened."

"Got into it with my mum," he mumbled, shaking off the inspection in favour of wrapping himself around Harry. 

"Oh dear." Harry hugged him close. "Talk?"

"Yeah...is Merlin still at the interview?"He'd tell the story twice, but he preferred not to.

"Unfortunately, yes, but at least it's going very well. Come on, let's go sit down and you tell me what happened. We'll fill Merlin in later." Harry guided Eggsy into the sitting room and onto the sofa, settling himself in close, with an arm around the other man's shoulders. 

"Well, for starters, we don't have to worry so much about a garden for Daisy and JB." Eggsy shrugged. "My mum won't allow her to be exposed to my deviant lifestyle." 

Ouch. "Fuck. You let a pronoun slip, I assume?" Because she'd been more or less okay with one boyfriend, or so Harry had thought. 

"Yeah, stupid me. But we were arguing about Dean and about how she missed him and I told her what he did to me. She just said that not everyone's a queer." Eggsy's voice tightened at that. 

Nothing like having a deep trauma dismissed in such an offhand, offensive fashion. "That was a bloody awful thing to say, darling. And then you, I'm guessing, were sent all off-guard."

"I wasn't even sure what I was saying. I couldn't believe she was letting him off the hook, that she didn't even believe me." Harry hadn't particularly liked Michelle all those years ago when he delivered the medal. The way she was so concerned about herself had always rubbed him the wrong way. That, and her lack of respect for the incredibly noble sacrifice Lee had made. He could put that down to grief, but the rest? Not as much.

"But you know that we believe you, yes?" Harry was aware that there was a simple, profound power to simply being believed. 

"Yeah, I know that, beautiful." Eggsy managed a tired half-smile and leaned in to kiss Harry's cheek. 

The brave little smile was what did Harry in, caused him to gather the younger man into his arms in a tight embrace. "Whatever she said about us, it's not true. You are loved. You belong." 

"And what we have is amazing. I do know." Eggsy gave up on restraint and just crawled into Harry's lap, letting his cheek rest on the soft cashmere of the other man's jumper, inhaling his scent. 

Harry stroked his back, fingertips tracing each knob of spine. "She's still letting Daisy go to school, I hope?"

"Yeah, for now. Harry, I'm scared she's gonna find Dean and go back to him. What if he finds a way to hurt Daisy?" There's really nothing Eggsy would put past the man.

"That won't be a concern much longer, darling." It was said so softly, so tenderly, but Eggsy picked up the meaning right quick.

"Really?" Maybe it was a sign of how amoral he'd grown since joining Kingsman, but all that confession made him feel was grateful. Better than a bouquet of flowers, for damned certain.

"Ever since you told us what he did to you. Just getting strong enough." The last thing they needed was for it to get bollocksed.

"I should do it." Eggsy could do it now, go find Dean, kill him nice and quiet, probably even set up his lapdogs to go to prison for it. 

"No. No, let us. Trust me on this, Eggsy. When retribution gets that personal, it leaves a nasty mark. One I wouldn't see you bear for anything in the world. Besides, allow me to have my murderous protective instinct where you're concerned, hm? I'm your lover. It's my job to take care of you."

"By killing the bastard who molested me." Eggsy laughed mirthlessly. 

"Were you of the impression that we were normal?" Harry smiled and lifted up Eggsy's chin, leaning down and pressing a gentle kiss against his lips. 

"No...and if it was just me, I'd say let it go. But my mum..." Eggsy felt no need to back away from Harry's lips to talk. It felt too nice to speak against them. "I don't know why, but she's drawn to him, and she'll take Daisy back. And then god forbid they get divorced and he get partial custody."

"Precisely. It's far too dangerous, with too much at stake." He kissed Eggsy again, and this time his tongue pressed deeper, past Eggsy's lips and deep inside. Not that he was pushing toward a quick fuck on the couch...Harry just wanted to kiss Eggsy until he stopped thinking about the whole mess. 

The angrier he got thinking about Michelle, the deeper the kiss became, until he had a panting armful of young man pressing up urgently against him. "Way to take a fella's mind off his problems," Eggsy murmured, tipping Harry's neck back and biting lightly just under his ear. 

"You know what they say." Harry's voice cracked a little.

"Mmm, what's that?" Eggsy continued the gentle biting all the way down Harry's neck, pushing aside the collar and jumper to reach his shoulder. 

"The best revenge against small-minded bigots is fantastic sex." Honestly, Eggsy could ruin the purest of intentions just by breathing, much less doing...doing **that**. 

"Truer words, love," Eggsy mumbled, sliding down between Harry's thighs and rubbing his face against the bulge in the other man's trousers. "You gonna let me suck this gorgeous cock?"

"Only if you promise to come all over my face." Harry's voice was barely a low rumble, but he caught an affectionate fist full of Eggsy's short hair, thrusting his hips up. 

"Fuck me, Harry...you're a filthy little slut sometimes, ain't ya?" Eggsy undid Harry's flies and wrapped his fist around the base of his prick, mouth swallowing down to meet his fingers. Eggsy's mouth always felt like heaven, warm and wet and tight with all sorts of interesting licking and suckling.

"For you two, always." Always their whore because he felt safe to be. His head hit the back of the padded sofa, "Fuck, fuck, Eggsy you're too damned good at this." 

That was definitely a chuckle around the tender-hard flesh appearing and disappearing from Eggsy's swollen lips. His fingers disappeared to dive down and rub against Harry's pucker, spit loosening the tight flesh. Harry couldn't even be embarrassed at how fast he opened up for that finger. 

One thing Harry knew for certain was that Eggsy was thoroughly engrossed in the act at hand, contentedly suckling and with his focus dialed in tight on Harry and his reactions. No room between them for harridan mothers saying hateful things, and for that he was grateful. 

Harry's hips jerked when two fingers pressed into him. It didn't hurt, but it was a bit of a stretch, at least until Eggsy found his prostate and rubbed firmly. "Christ, yes...fuck!" It was all a cornucopia of sensory overload, and Harry wasn't about to resist it. He let the pleasure roll over him in bright waves, feeling Eggsy swallow around him, then pull up to catch the last drops on his tongue. 

Before he knew it, Eggsy was in his lap again, mouth pressed to his so he could taste his own come. _Scandalous little thing._ But Harry loved every minute, every second of every fuck because his scandalous little thing was an incredibly giving lover. When Eggsy finally let Harry breathe, he was licking his lips and smiling. 

"I do believe you owe me. Come on, you must be so hard," Harry murmured, reaching down to find the evidence just as he suspected, then pulling Eggsy up to stand on the sofa (and god, would he ever not do that in a less fuck-drunk mood--the upholstery for heaven's sake). Eggsy shoved his jeans down had his prick in his fist in moments, and it just looked too damned delicious for Harry to resist bringing it in for a suck after a quick admonition that they remember the deal. 

Harry used his mouth to move the foreskin all the way back behind the head, then he sucked in most of the length and let his fist do the rest of the work at this slightly awkward angle. It might've been a bit awkward, but Eggsy was looking down at him like it was the single best blowjob he'd ever had in his life. "Aw, fuck yeah, god, Harry..." 

It didn't take long at all, just a few rabbity heartbeats, before he felt the big vein on the underside of Eggsy's prick swell and throb on his tongue, and for Eggsy to pant, "Close, 'm fucking so fucking close..." 

That sentence was a mess grammatically, but Harry would let it slide since it was hot as all get-out to hear Eggsy lose it every time. The younger man rocked back and took his cock back into his own fist, coming hard for Harry across his mouth, his chin and his cheeks. The white streaks were gorgeous on that handsome face, and so was the expression of feral joy.

Harry's tongue darted around to taste and lick up every drop he could, but Eggsy took a more direct approach, crouching back down to lap up the lines of seed and urge them right onto Harry's questing tongue. Although it should be impossible, Harry could actually feel himself getting hard again. Little bugger had done one of his biggest kinks and done it fucking perfectly. 

When his face was clean, Harry pulled Eggsy sideways onto his lap and kissed him properly. "Thank you," he murmured.

"What?" Eggsy huffed out a laugh against Harry's neck.

"For being as utterly perverted as I am." 

"You never have to worry about that, love."

Harry looked down at Eggsy in his arms and smiled. They'd have to see about that, and soon. 

**

In the end, after Merlin was told about the fight and the fears that Michelle would go back to Dean, it was rather cute that Harry thought he was the only one who could handle that deadbeat fuck. Merlin slipped out of the house while both his lovers slept later that same night, heading by cab and then on foot to Eggsy's old council flat, fully expecting to find Dean there, possibly with a few of his cronies. It hardly mattered. 

It was comically easy to disable the already fritzy surveillance cameras in the area, and he went unseen up to the door. A clean up team was already waiting to remove all trace of him from this place when he was done. Picking the lock was a matter of a few moments, and much as expected, he found Dean and three of his flunkies passed out on the sofa and chair. 

Moving like a ghost, he rendered the flunkies unconscious with amnesia darts. When he finally faced Dean he looked at the man, head cocked to one side. So this was the man who felt he could use their Eggsy, hm? He was hardly impressive, but he was big and from everything he'd seen, Eggsy had been a small kid. 

Merlin removed the man's mobile from his sweaty grip without waking him, and thumbed through his recent text messages. And naturally, there they were--an assortment of texts from and to Michelle, right up to giving him her new address. Eggsy had been right: the moment she felt alone, she'd reached out to him. The texts were pathetic and pleading, while Dean's were clearly predatory. House was in a posh neighbourhood, check. There were things to steal, check. There was a desperate and still-attractive woman who would do anything he asked, check. Merlin put the phone back in Dean's hand.

It took a certain skill to literally beat a man to death. It also took a great deal of smarts to lift the bugged argument from Harry's system and remix it so the only voices in evidence were Dean's and his friends'. He pulled out a small recorder and hit play, volume on maximum, as he delivered his first, crushing blow to the man's cheekbone, feeling it crunch under his gloved fist.

Dean's eyes flew open and he bellowed in rage, lunging up at Merlin but getting beaten back down with a vicious uppercut to the jaw. After that, Merlin let him struggle to his feet, but only long enough to take him down, impacting his temple hard on the very corner of the coffee table. The table broke and so did Dean, falling slumped in a very undignified, very dead pile. 

"Oh dear, you seem to have slipped," Merlin murmured, cutting the tape with the impact. "May you sleep tight down in Hell, tonight." If there was ever a time to misquote the Pogues just a little, this was it. While the other three were out, he used coarse sandpaper to approximate the wounds they'd have received in a fist fight. 

By the time he slipped out of the flat, two faceless figures in black were waiting in the darkness to enter. "Such a pity, they accidentally killed him in a common, drunken brawl." He tsked, and they passed him, ready to wake up the other three and implant memories in their suggestible state before cleaning up anything that Merlin might have missed. 

It would be perfect.

Silly Harry, thinking this was all on him. Merlin had been trained, too. By the time he re-entered their bedroom, stripping down and crawling in next to Eggsy, he couldn't help smiling in the darkness as he kissed the side of the younger man's neck. 

**

When the news went round, Harry and Eggsy were not surprised. They just looked at Merlin, who shrugged. "It was nothing." Just taking out the trash before it could transmit its diseases to a new generation. He wasn't quite prepared for how hard Eggsy had embraced him, or for how long, or for the way the younger man shook in his arms.

Michelle was hysterical, naturally, but her sister came to stay with them, but for two glorious nights, they had Daisy and JB at theirs. Michelle had forgotten all about her disgust the moment it was more convenient to have Daisy looked after by her brother. He'd brought her over on Sunday morning right after the news broke, and he took off Monday to spend with her. If he hadn't loved his men enough already, they went out ostensibly for nappies and some snacks and had come back with a convertible crib and a cab full of toys and clothes to keep there in the spare bedroom. 

"If Harry ever met a problem he couldn't solve by going shopping, I haven't met it," Merlin joked, edging in a little closer to where Harry, Eggsy and Daisy were busy examining all the new things, Daisy laughing when Eggsy couldn't get a stubborn package open. 

"A gentleman is always well-equipped," Harry rebutted, distracting the toddler with a new puzzle while her brother struggled with some scissors and apparently aircraft-window-grade plastic. He was at ease around the child, lounging on the floor in his impeccably fitted jeans and that jumper that brought out his eyes so perfectly. 

Merlin, on the other hand, was not so at-ease. He'd already plugged all the outlets and made sure anything, er, controversial was under lock and key. She just seemed so small and so vulnerable and for god's sake how did one even deal with that?

"Come on down here, Merlin. She's really curious about you." Daisy did keep sneaking glances up at the tall man, who probably seemed like a giant. Merlin eased himself down to the rug where Harry patted and she immediately toddled over to show him her puzzle, eyes huge. 

"Bloody, buggering piece of...crap..." Eggsy barely censored himself, even though he was muttering under his breath. Finally he gave up on that particular toy and put it and the scissors in the top dresser drawer until later so he could play, too. Her favourite so far was a soft, handsewn doll that Merlin had actually picked up and shown to Harry. She handed him the doll as if she knew and smiled at him, and he smiled back and that was that. 

Soon she was utterly worn out and falling asleep alternately on Eggsy's and Merlin's shoulders while Harry was downstairs prepping the Sunday roast. Eggsy showed Merlin how to lay her down without waking her up, and they turned on the monitor and picked up the remote unit before creeping out with JB at their heels. 

Eggsy was clearly over the moon, and Harry and Merlin were both hugged and snogged to within an inch of their lives, and promised various lewd favours after bedtime for being the best boyfriends ever.

**

Monday afternoon came and went, with Eggsy showing up to the funeral dressed in a perfect suit, carrying Daisy dressed in a tasteful and appropriate dark navy dress and jacket. She didn't cry once, and neither did he. The two of them stood out, now, amongst the people who attended that funeral. None of the old thugs dared call Eggsy out, but his mother's grief was rather theatrical. 

Eggsy and Daisy watched, and the little girl smiled when her brother whispered something in her ear. 

"You must always strive to be better than your former self" was what he said, and though she didn't understand, she loved the soothing sound of her brother's voice.

**

Eggsy dropped Daisy and JB off Tuesday morning before he went into work. "She's had breakfast, so she probably won't be hungry again for awhile." 

"Right, now you're telling me how to take care of my own daughter." Michelle's tone lacked acid or fire, it was just dull and flat with her grief. 

"No, mum, just letting you know so you don't worry." He set Daisy down and she tottered off after JB into the living room. "We loved having her. Anytime you want a night out, or just a break, we'd be thrilled to take her. We even have her room done up." 

"I'm not sure about that, Eggsy. This was an emergency situation, y'know. Not sure how I feel about her being around all that business more often." Michelle crinkled up her nose. 

"They're the ones who went out and bought a crib and clothes and toys. Because they know she makes me happy, and they want me to be happy. And now they're in love with her, too. She'll always be well looked after at ours." Three pairs of eyes on one toddler was just about the right ratio, if you asked Eggsy.

"I'll think about it. You can't ask for more than that." From her tone, it rather sounded to Eggsy like she'd already made up her mind and that the answer was no, but it was indeed all he could expect.

"Yeah. So tomorrow morning's the big first day. You got the uniforms I sent over?" When she nodded, he continued. "I'll pick her up in the morning, 7:30 sharp. I should have her home before five."

"And when do I get to see this amazing school?" 

_When you pass security clearance, for god's sake, and who knows when that'll be._ "You know my employer is very quiet, but for right now, just until they've given me permission to bring you along, you'll have to trust me. It's for Daisy's future, Mum."

She sighed, resigned to this, at least. It seemed daft that such a young child should go to school when she didn't even have to work, but all of the research Eggsy had dumped on her via email showed that it helped with everything from future academic performance to social skills. So she relented. About this one thing. "And when you have to go on a business trip?"

"Then Aaron will be by to take her. She loves him, so she shouldn't freak out or nothin'." It was universally agreed in the household that the longer they could keep her from knowing Harry was a member of their little triad, the better. 

"One of your 'boyfriends.'" 

"Yes, Mum." And he was getting exasperated again. "One willing and happy to ferry my little sister around to school and back when I can't." Clearly, it was all part of the gay agenda.

He said goodbye to Daisy and left before things got heated again. He had a long day of training ahead of him, and plans involving intense intoxication at the end of it.

**

"You did NOT!" Eggsy's glass of scotch sloshed a bit as he leaned forward, toward Merlin and Harry.

"Oh I can assure you we did, and knowing Chester there's probably still tapes around to prove that we fucked on his desk." Harry grinned. 

"And there was that bit against the door of his office," Merlin added, extra helpful with a few glasses inside him.

"Oh god yes, we were so glad to be alive that we just grabbed the nearest room with a door. I didn't even realise it was Arthur's until after I sucked him off." Harry shook his head with fake solemnity. "Now there was a man without a real sense of humour." 

"Who is hopefully rotting in Hell!" Eggsy got terribly enthusiastic about everything when he was drunk. 

"He probably just needed a proper fuck he didn't have to pay for." And Merlin, it would seem, got catty.

"Now, now..." Harry grinned and sprawled untidily in the corner of the couch with Eggsy in the curl of his arm. "He didn't **always** pay for it..." 

Merlin and Harry together recited, "Because there was always the first Saturday of every month!" And then there were helpless giggles. 

Eggsy laughed along with them, picking it up immediately. "Only time the Missus would do it?"

They nodded, and didn't volunteer any hints as to how they knew, and Eggsy didn't ask. "Holy hell, I'd die if I only got shagged once a month."

"Not much to worry about there--especially since it's more like you'd die if you didn't get shagged once a day. At least." Merlin teased him with a smile, not quite as tipsy as the other two since god only knew what they'd get up to that might require some kind of adult supervision.

Eggsy nodded emphatically and swayed up to refill his and Harry's glasses before snuggling back into the corner. "So are you gonna tell me what was so fuckin' mortifying, Harry?" He snuck his free hand under the hem of Harry's shirt so he could touch skin. 

"I..." Harry looked helplessly at Merlin, but Merlin just shook his head slightly. It was Harry's story to tell, and honestly, it was about time he became more comfortable with this part of his identity. Getting it out and telling Eggsy would be good for him.

"Harry, love, you know I ain't gonna judge anything you say, right?" Eggsy leaned up to kiss him briefly. "I mean, you know that, right?"

"I know it. On some level I know it. But there are other levels..." Harry took a deep breath and another sip of scotch. "I suppose I start by telling you that I grew up in a very conservative, very repressed, very homophobic household. I was a third son. They had their heir and a spare and never knew quite what to do with me, so obviously I was destined for Kingsman and that was all well and good because I was always a queer little thing." In every sense of the word. He took a much bigger sip.

"I bet that went over real well with two brothers." Eggsy could only imagine how nasty those fights got. 

"Not until the queer little thing showed he had teeth." Harry quirked a half-smile. "It got worse after my father died. He was more like me, quiet and bookish, than my mum. My mum lives for horses and hunting and all that genteel but vicious shit. She was adamant that I not disgrace the family, that I never show up in the papers." He ran a hand over his hair, settling it back from his forehead. 

"All of this is to say that I was always ashamed of who I was. I put it in a bottle and sealed the cork and ignored it until I met Merlin." 

"And let me tell you, that was a bottle that was hell to open," Merlin added.

"Come on, you got some fun out of it, you know." Harry defended himself.

"More than some, but even looking back now, the self-loathing was heartbreaking." 

"Drink some more, Harry, and let's move this past your childhood. I'm gettin' all defensive just hearin' about it." Eggsy hated that his family hadn't treated Harry like the wonder he was.

Harry decided not to ignore that very good advice. "Eventually, I accepted that I'm not only gay, but that I'm, well, very much a bottom. But there was this little niggle that kept coming up in my head, or rather like an itch in me that would get overwhelming from time to time. I wore poor Merlin out trying to fuck it out of me, but it wasn't so much about fucking as about a part of who I am."

"Yeah...that had to be frustrating." Eggsy was dying of curiosity, and starting to see the picture, but he let Harry continue at his own pace.

"Sometimes...sometimes I like to be a girl. When we're having sex." It still made his cheeks turn bright red.

Eggsy couldn't help but kiss them. "Hey...it's all right, love. I think it's hot. You'll have to teach me all about it, right?" Because yeah, Harry as a girl was ridiculously attractive in concept, but he wasn't sure how to **do** it yet. "You and Merlin show me, and we'll make sure you never lack for the kind of fucking you need, anytime." 

"It's as simple as that, then?" Harry took a deep, uneven breath. "No questions about my gender identity, no...'do you always feel like a girl deep down', none of that?"

"I ain't your shrink, love. I think I know you well enough to know that you don't always feel like a girl, but I'm not here to push you for answers to questions I don't even know to ask. I'm just here to love you, no matter who you are." For Eggsy, it was that simple. "You ever **want** to talk to me about that stuff, I'm here, but I think I clock the sexual part of it pretty well. The corsets nip in your waist and give you some cleavage, yeah? God, I bet you look pretty in 'em." 

"Oh yes, he certainly does. He's my bonny lass," Merlin murmured, setting aside his glass to come and lean over to kiss Harry. He knew how hard this was, and he was very proud.

"All right, I think your bonny lass needs to take me upstairs and do a tour of the lingerie department. You stay here, Merlin, till I call for you, yeah?" Eggsy leaned over to kiss the other man. "It'll be a little while, but it'll be well worth it, I promise." 

"Oh god, what are you two up to? Now I'm outnumbered." Much as Merlin predicted, Eggsy had taken to the idea like a duck to water. 

"Yeah you are, get used to it." Another peck of a kiss, and Eggsy was lurching tipsily to his feet and reaching out a hand to steady Harry as he got up. He was still a little uneven when he got up and down, and he held onto that hand as they climbed the stairs up to the bedroom. 

"So I was thinkin', sweetheart," Eggsy said to the still-blushing Harry when they'd laid all the lingerie out in the dressing room. "You ever consider shaving before you slide these gorgeous silk stockings up over your legs?" His fingers played over the arrayed lace and finery, until he came to a gorgeous piece that was almost retro, a skin tone corset covered by black lace that would leave his nipples bare and had suspenders to hold those silk stockings. 

"I...might have, but...I never did," Harry murmured. "You found my favourite," he admitted. "I should have known you would."

"It's beautiful, just like you. You trust me? Cos I really want to shave you bare for Merlin, before I lick and finger that sweet pussy nice and open and wet." Yeah, Eggsy was taking to this like a champ, like he did most things. 

"Oh god." Harry had to reach down and press with heel of his palm against the base of his prick trapped in his trousers. "You don't know what hearing you say those things does to me."

"Oh, I think I do," Eggsy breathed, reaching out to strip off Harry's clothes quickly and efficiently, standing him in front of the full length mirror. "I can see your hard clit." Reaching around from behind, he stroked down, exposing the red, slick tip. "But you're gonna have to wait to come till we're done shaving you, and you're all opened up for your men, hm?"

And there goes Eggsy, blowing past barriers like it was his job. Which, well. It rather was. Ruthless filthiness and lewd enthusiasm overcame all. "Yes," Harry breathed. "God yes, I want you to make me bare so my legs are pretty in the stockings." If Merlin had been there, he would have had a coronary hearing Harry not just own it, but take it down the road a step farther. 

"There's a good girl. I thought so." Eggsy stripped down just as quickly, baring his own erection which he'd decided would take a back seat for a while. This side of Harry was just too delicious to get distracted. He took Harry's hand and led him into the bathroom, gathering shaving cream and putting a fresh razor blade in before starting the water and filling the tub. This was gonna get messy. He loved messy.

Eggsy texted Merlin while Harry was getting in the tub, fishing his mobile out of his discarded jeans. _This may be a while, but trust me. You'll love it. Love you._

A moment later came the response. _You texted me from upstairs. We've become THAT family. I love you, too._

Grinning, Eggsy went into the bathroom, gathered everything, and situated himself opposite Harry in the big tub. "How's my girl?" As he took Harry's long leg and propped the foot against his chest, he gave the big toe a little suck, just to keep him interested. 

"Oh...oh, quite...good." Even with the business of getting in the tub and waiting for Eggsy, Harry was still rock hard. 

"So I see. Now I'm gonna be real careful with you, sweetheart, you know that, right?" Always so careful, no matter who Harry was at the moment, but still. He did have a sharp instrument in his hands, and he was spreading lather up Harry's leg. 

His hands were careful and gentle as he traced the razor over Harry's legs, thighs then calves, and the water became quite a disaster. The water may have been a mess, but Harry's legs were gorgeous and smooth, and every time Eggsy got close to his inner thighs Harry groaned and his hips thrust up. "Now you're quite the lady. Just a few more little details, yeah?"

"Like what?" Harry murmured as Eggsy pulled the drain and let the fouled water swirl away, getting carefully to his feet and bringing Harry up, too. He started the shower and shielded Harry till it was the right temperature.

"I think your chest and your underarms should be nice and smooth, too. Don't you, sweetheart?" He stopped long enough to press Harry up against the tile for a long, lascivious kiss. 

"It...is only proper, I suppose, for a lady." Harry couldn't stop rubbing his shaved legs together, and it obviously gave him quite the thrill. 

"I suppose so, but I'll believe you're a lady when I see how you act in bed. I don't think you're really much of a **lady** , are you?" Eggsy got them both rinsed off, then shaved off what little hair Harry had on his broad chest and then tackled his underarms. 

"Oh, maybe I should say it's only right for a filthy little slut like me to do whatever her men want," Harry groaned and just gave up, melting back against the tile and letting Eggsy have his way. Eggsy even got all the hair around his prick. Clit. God, that was wonderfully filthy.

He let Eggsy rinse him down and then find some unscented soap back from his recovery to wash them both. Wouldn't do to be so nice and pretty and then smell like a boy, now would it?

"I think you need a, what do they call it, a signature fragrance, sweet girl. Something musky and a little dirty." But definitely, defiantly feminine. Out of the shower and dried off, Eggsy attacked him with some of the heavy-duty unscented lotion they'd sent him home from hospital with to combat the dry skin of too much convalescence. It gave Eggsy a fierce joy to see Harry now, just a few weeks from waking up, giving all of the doctors the fuck-off with his usual understated grace. You couldn't put either of his lovers into a box or tell them what they could or couldn't do, anymore than you could do the same to him. 

When he was soft and smooth everywhere, Eggsy helped him into the corset and stockings and oh dear god the effect was breathtaking. "You look like a fucking dream come true, angel. Just look how beautiful you are." And Eggsy made Harry look. No knickers this time, just his clit jutting up to his flat belly, the sheer stockings showing off his toned, smooth legs..it almost wasn't fair when Eggsy reached around to pinch his nipples nice and hard, giving them a lovely flush. 

"Tell me where the clamps are, beautiful," he murmured into Harry's ear. "And then get on the bed, yes?"

"They're in the box in the top of the closet. The combination is 009." Harry's cock jerked at the thought, then he left obediently to get into the bed. Eggsy was far from drunk at this point, and so was Harry. This was all conscious, all real. All perfect, as far as Eggsy was concerned. 

He pulled down the box and entered the combination, and his eyes grew big at some of the things he found. _We'll have to have a little conversation about holding out on the good stuff after this._ He found the clamps, connected by a fine silvery chain, and chose a nice big plug and the heaviest lube he could find before closing the box, grabbing a pair of stockings, and coming in to find Harry on the bed, for once not as nervous as an old-school bride on her wedding night but rather splayed out decoratively with his legs a little apart. 

"Christ, you're a pretty sight, sweet girl," he said, dumping everything on the bed and crawling up to kiss Harry thoroughly. His thighs rubbed against Harry's, and he couldn't resist hooking his hands under Harry's legs and pulling him open even more before ducking his head down to suck hard at one tight, exposed nipple. "And we are going to make you feel so, so good." 

Harry groaned and his hips jerked, but that was nothing compared to the reaction when Eggsy fastened a clip around one nipple, turning the little screw till it was tight but not painful, then did the same on the other side. It was a perfect little accent and it clearly made Harry mad with the sensation. 

"You ready to open up for Merlin?" Eggsy let his tongue trail over the trapped nipples, looking up at Harry through his lashes. "He's so big, we wouldn't want him to hurt your poor little cunt, now would we?" 

"Fuck." Harry swallowed hard. "No, no...I want to be nice and loose and open and wet." 

"Of course you do. And I like to eat pussy." Which wasn't even true in this specific circumstance--he actually did like it. Oral fixation, et cetera. Eggsy slithered down Harry's body and settled in, pulling his arse cheeks apart and baring the little pucker, watching it dilate in anticipation of his tongue. No time for teasing right now, and he didn't want to wait a moment more anyway. 

At first, Eggsy just flickered the tip of his tongue against the furled muscle, making each pass slower and deeper until he was pushing inside, groaning at the taste and scent and the gripping, muscular hunger he felt around his tongue. It was intoxicating, and he let himself be drawn in, tongue-fucking the little hole, then stopping to close his lips around the rim and suckle at the flesh, feeling it bloom and open up greedily. _Jesus fucking Christ, he's ready to go right now._ But that wasn't the point. The point was that this wasn't an arsehole at all, it was a pussy, and pussies behaved a bit differently. 

He pulled away and looked up at Harry, who was utterly blissed out, eyes dilated and muzzy as he looked down at Eggsy. "Oh, please don't stop...please...keep licking my pussy." 

"Mmm, this little pussy is ready for more though, darling," Eggsy purred, rubbing his own hard cock against the duvet for a moment's relief. He slicked his fingers with the viscous, clear lube and pressed in two very easily. "There now, ain't that better?" 

All Harry could manage in reply was a series of desperate moans, so Eggsy assumed the answer was an emphatic 'yes.' And from those moans, and the way that Harry's pussy was sucking at his fingers as he fucked them in and out, he had a brilliant idea...and very small hands. 

"Gonna fill you up nice and proper, don't you worry. Think you take my hand, sweet girl? That'd get you so nice and loose for your men now, wouldn't it?" To prove the point, he added a third slippery finger.

"Yes yes yes, please...yes..." _Well, okay then._

Eggsy grinned through his own stabbing arousal as he scooped up more lube and returned with four fingers, forming them into a wedge and fucking them in and out, angling up at Harry's prostate only occasionally because otherwise it was just mean. Harry wasn't going to get to come till both his men were done with him. 

Harry cried out, but not in pain, and thrust his hips down on the wedged fingers, panting and mewling and saying incoherent things that would pass for enthusiastic consent in anyone's books. When those four fingers didn't seem to feel like **enough** for his lover, Eggsy somewhat nervously added even more lube and curled his fingers in, using the sucking rhythm around them to pull the widest part of his hand inside. His eyes were flicking back and forth from where his fist ( _Oh dear god, that is so fucking hot_ ) was buried up to Harry's face, which was so far past ecstatic that it erased all of Eggsy's nervousness. 

Eggsy had never done this before, he'd just done what made sense, but he figured gentle was the only way to go when you're wrist-deep in another person, so he thrust, shocked at how Harry's insides clung and moved with him. He was also turned on as hell at the noises that were coming out of his girl's mouth. Oh so carefully, he crawled up to kiss Harry, groaning against his lips when Harry's hips tilted up. 

"So full, Eggsy, so full oh god..."

"Yeah? You ready for us now? Christ..." 

"Please, please, want you both so much, want you in me together...fucking my pussy." Oh dear god, Eggsy was in his very own porno. Only this was a million times hotter than anything he'd ever seen on a screen. 

"Anything my girl wants, she gets," he whispered, ducking back down to back his fist carefully out of Harry's cunt, groaning at the way it stayed open now, glistening and so, so ready. He greased up the plug and slipped it into place to make sure it stayed that way, and then he moved everything else unceremoniously to the side of the bed, kissed Harry again, then went to the top of the stairs.

"Merlin?" His voice cracked a little, and he was halfway to being as wrecked as Harry at this point. "I think you'll want to come up now." 

"Finally!" Merlin groused, putting aside the book he was reading and emptying the last bit of the scotch from his glass. He took the stairs rapidly and then stopped at the bedroom door, staring at Harry. "Oh dear god. You've just wrecked our pretty girl, haven't you?" He moved forward like they were magnetised, and Eggsy crawled in on one side to suckle at a pinched nipple. 

"Lift your arms up, let him see how pretty and smooth you really are," Eggsy said, urging Harry to comply, knowing it'd make the presentation even more beautiful.

Merlin almost tripped he got undressed so fast, prowling onto the bed on Harry's other side, reaching down to rock the plug inside him, relishing the way Harry twisted between them. 

"Tell Merlin what you told me," Eggsy whispered.

"I want both of my gorgeous men in my pussy at the same time," he groaned out, so far past embarrassment that it came out almost as a purr, and without the hint of a blush. Eggsy couldn't help but feel satisfied at a job well done.

"I told her she can't come until we're thoroughly done with her," Eggsy murmured, leaning over Harry to steal a kiss from Merlin, his eyes alight with an almost unholy glee.

"Then we'd better take our fill before she can't help herself anymore and dirties her pretty corset," Merlin answered. He nudged at Harry until he could get underneath, then reach back to pull out the plug gently. Harry straddled Merlin's hips and rocked backward blindly, looking for cock to fill him up. "You get behind him, Eggsy, yeah?"

Eggsy was already on board, crawling off the bed to reposition himself at Harry's back, stroking the long, muscular expanse of flesh and licking and biting at his bare shoulders. Merlin took Harry by the hips and settled him down onto his cock, causing all three of them to moan, two at the sensation, one at the sight. 

Harry ground down on it and whimpered, his hips flush on Merlin's and moving in deep circles to try and engulf even more. He started moving immediately after that, rocking up and down. Eggsy pressed against his back and took Harry's hard length in his hand. "Just look how hard her poor clit is, Merlin, god she's being such a good girl holding off for us, ain't she?" 

The clit reference made Merlin get a feral look on his face and he held Harry still while he slammed hard up into him. "She's being a perfect girl. Now get in her, I'll hold her still." 

Eggsy did not need to be told twice. He positioned himself and fed his cock in on top of Merlin's. Harry's body didn't tense with pain but he certainly moaned with the pleasure of it. They were soon both balls deep, and Eggsy realised he'd need to do most of the driving. 

They were both so hyper-focused on Harry that a nuclear bomb could have gone off in the bedroom and they wouldn't have noticed. The rhythm stuttered at first, but Eggsy steadied it with Merlin's help and then they were both fucking Harry like it was their godddamned jobs. 

As unbearably sensual as it was to feel Merlin's cock pushed up against his inside the tight sleeve of Harry's pussy, it was nothing compared to what Harry was feeling. He was so full that every movement jostled his sweet spot, and he was reduced to letting Eggsy and Merlin support him, wordless pleading noises falling from his lips. 

Merlin and Eggsy locked eyes and they both nodded. It was so past time to let Harry come, and god knew they were right there with him. Merlin wrapped his fist around Harry's clit and Harry's body shuddered. "Tell him," Eggsy ground out, riding the very edge of his own orgasm.

"Come for us, pretty girl," Merlin growled, knowing very well that Harry didn't need the stroking to come with the battering his prostate was getting, but also knowing that the hand would make it sharper, harder, longer. 

Harry cried out brokenly, unable to do anything but spurt over Merlin's gripping fist. Both the men inside him were unable to resist the incredible tightening of Harry's cunt as he came, letting it trigger their own orgasms. Everything was slick and compressed and the scent was as delicious as the three different cries of pleasure. 

When the pleasure finally left them in peace, Eggsy pulled out first, shaky but somewhat functional, and curling up around both his men as Harry just collapsed forward onto Merlin's chest. He was a little overcome, and as the orgasm receded the knowledge of everything he'd just done came rushing in.

Before the doubt could catch hold, Merlin stroked back his hair to see Harry's eyes. "That was probably the sexiest thing I've ever seen, Harry. God, thank you...Thank both of you." Because he knew Eggsy, well, egged Harry on. 

Eggsy hummed and snuggled in closer, rubbing Harry's back. "You have no idea just how hot that was, Harry. How glad I am you told me, that you trusted me with this." 

Harry nodded and looked at both of them. "I just...never thought I'd...welcome it." 

"I hope you know now that whenever she wants to come out and play, we are both one hundred percent on board, yes?" Merlin asked, and Eggsy nodded. 

"I do, actually. I actually know that now. I've always known it, Merlin. Known that you accepted me. But apparently it takes someone to push me hard past other boundaries to get me to know it inside, not just in my head." 

Eggsy blushed a little. "I...just thought it'd be hot if I shaved him and fisted him." He shrugged.

"Our sex fairy." Merlin laughed. "You just spread orgasms everywhere you go." Even Harry laughed. 

"Oi now! I don't know if that's flattering or not!" Eggsy grinned though.

"Oh, trust us, it's flattering, you vain creature." Harry pulled him in to kiss. And then so did Merlin. Eventually, Eggsy crawled unsteadily from the bed to get wet cloths to clean up Harry and Merlin's stomach, and the two of them got the corset and stockings off so that they could curl up for a very well-deserved night's sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you guys make my world go round. Thank you for reading and responding and being wonderful!


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex, some other stuff at work, more sex, Eggsy gets past a nasty mental block, and a mission goes disastrously awry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken SO LONG. I was having some medical issues that were interfering with my mojo, and Merlin's POV is always the most challenging for me. Also, sorry for leaving it where I did guys.

"Jesus Fucking...Mmmph!" Merlin's hand grabbed the back of Eggsy's neck, yanking him in for a kiss that interrupted the expletive. It also had the effect of burrowing both of them deeper into Harry, who shuddered between them. 

There were so many boxes in their new flat that it looked like the three of them were afloat on the sofa, alone in the world except for a sea of cardboard and half-unpacked crumpled paper. They'd found the lube, though, and taken it as god's way of telling them to christen the new place.

Who was Merlin to argue? Unpacking was so god-awfully tedious, and his lovers were anything but. 

Merlin broke the kiss to lick and bite a stripe along Harry’s shoulder, stopping just at the back of his neck. He drove deeper, angled just right, and Harry moaned loudly around Eggsy’s prick. Of course, that prompted an answering moan, tinged with desperation, from Eggsy, like a contained, sweaty, panting echo chamber of pleasure. It was all a bit **much** but Merlin wouldn’t have it any other way. His men were animals, and so was he.

The thick, saturated stretch of the moment snapped when Harry did, bucking between them with a violent jerk and coming all over their newly-moved couch. Eggsy pulled out while the spasm of it wracked his lover, then Merlin gasped as the younger man gripped his aching cock and spurted all over Harry’s face. It would seem that Eggsy had learned even more of Harry’s filthy little kinks. Of course, watching them was one of Merlin’s own filthy little kinks, and he couldn’t possibly hold back his own orgasm from them.

He was still riding the waves of it as he watched Eggsy lean over to lick Harry’s face clean. He shared a kiss with Harry, then with Merlin. The combination of both of them was heady, pulling another long groan out of him and causing his cock to twitch where it was still buried inside Harry.

“Fuck. You filthy little darlings,” he murmured, pulling Eggsy in to suck at his tongue just a little more. Always ‘just a little more’ with these two because there was no such thing as ‘enough.’

Carefully, so carefully, Merlin pulled his sated dick out of Harry’s arse and sat back, dragging the both of them into his arms. Harry spread on his lap and Eggsy snuggled under his arm to rest his head on Merlin’s shoulder. “Mmm, you smell good,” Eggsy whispered, rubbing his face against Merlin’s armpit, and Merlin had to laugh.

“Insatiable git.” He smelled like sweat and musk, and of course Eggsy loved it.

“For you lot?” Eggsy snorted indelicately. “Always.”

No doubt about it, they were home.

**

Merlin cursed inwardly as he flipped through the mission briefing file on his clipboard. Charlie had been excruciatingly thorough, as always, and the numbers looked good. He recommended Galahad for this mission based on some very solid parameters and a few algorithms that made even Merlin’s head hurt a bit. Someday, maybe he would stop hating sending his lover out, but if the past nearly 20 years had taught him anything, it was that no, it never got easier.

Every time over the years that he’d sent Harry out he’d worried himself sick. And of course, he was right to worry about them. This wasn’t easy work. The day was coming when he’d have to deal with the lingering trauma of sitting on the other end of a remote connection and watching his beloved get shot in the head. Harry may be home safe, but he had another few decades to deal with watching Eggsy do the same things. God willing, he had a few decades.

He called the briefing and allowed Charlie to lead, sitting back and watching Eggsy and the members of the strike team asking questions and being generally smart. They had to leave the next morning, there was no time to wait before hitting the target hard. The only good thing about these heavily armed and armoured intrusions was that they were fast. They’d have their lover back within a few days. Unharmed.

Merlin spent the rest of the day trying to shake the very bad feeling he had about this mission because on their way home, Eggsy would be taking him to meet Michelle. To say he was nervous would be an understatement. Michelle’s stability had grown over the last month, until she’d started making noises at Eggsy that she actually wanted to meet his ‘boyfriends.’ Still with the air quotes, but not nearly as angry as before. That only ratcheted Merlin’s nervousness down by a hair. There was no way Michelle was actually going to **like** him, but maybe she could at least tolerate him for Daisy’s sake.

The fact that he was the one who killed Dean didn’t make Merlin feel particularly bothered. He’d done what he had to do to protect his lover’s family, and that was that. Besides, the man had put hands on their Eggsy, and that was not to be borne.

After work, Eggsy and Merlin rode back to London together, heads close together and talking about the mission, about dinner that night, about Harry coming back to the office officially next week. Their body language was unmistakable if you thought to look, but neither of them could bring themselves to care too much. ‘Fuck ‘em if they can’t cope’ should probably be the official motto of the household at this point.

Once outside in the crisp twilight, Eggsy’s hand slid into Merlin’s, and they walked in step toward school to pick up Daisy. Once in hand, after hearing about her day, they took turns carrying her on the way to Harry’s old flat.

Truth was, Eggsy was nervous, too, although he’d been so very (falsely) optimistic earlier. ‘She’ll love you! How can she not? You’re brilliant.’

Merlin didn’t feel brilliant while they waited for Michelle to come to the door. He felt like a giant, perverted old man next to Eggsy’s vibrant, exuberant youthfulness and yet…and yet he couldn’t let go of Eggsy’s small, capable hand.

Michelle answered the door dressed in jeans and a jumper, and Daisy automatically reached for her mum and was gathered onto a hip. 

“Mum, I wanted to introduce you to Aaron.” Eggsy just forged ahead, brave and brash as always. “Aaron, this is my mum, Michelle.”

“It’s a pleasure, Ms. Unwin,” Merlin said, inclining his head at her slightly in respect. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

Michelle eyed him up and down, eyebrows climbing a bit. It was obvious that whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t a very tall Scotsman her own age. “Um. Yes, well. Come in.” She moved away from the door and they followed her inside. “Does this mean you’re going out of town, Eggsy?”

“Yeah, mum, it does. I’m leaving in the morning early and Aaron will be by to take Daisy in to school.”

“And you work with Eggsy, then?” She turned her attention on Merlin.

“I do, yes. I promise I’ll take very good care of our girl here.” Our girl may be a bit of a stretch, but it felt natural enough to say, and Michelle’s head didn’t explode.

“I certainly hope so. She’s been doing really well since she started this new school and I want to make sure she doesn’t miss any days.” Michelle and Merlin were alike in their shared discomfort about the situation in general. Eggsy was happily making faces at Daisy to get her to laugh.

“Eggsy’s been telling me all about it. Myself, I think he’s just glad he gets to see her every day.” Merlin smiled when he looked over at his lover being silly, and he couldn’t keep the besotted look off his face. He didn’t want to, for that matter.

“I suspect you’re right. Would you like some tea?” Apparently, mums can’t resist a person who loves their child so unreservedly. Merlin could feel a distinct thaw.

“I wish we could, but we need to get home and start dinner. I’ll see you in the morning, then?” Merlin didn’t say that Harry would have already done the domestic business. Especially because, at least in part, he wanted to get Eggsy home to give him a proper send-off before dawn came, unwelcome and unwanted.

“Ah, yes. Some other time, then.” She still looked uncomfortable as Merlin gathered Eggsy and shooed him toward the door, but she she did seem a bit less disapproving. _Probably surprised I don’t have three heads and foot-long fangs._ On the whole, he’d count the brief exchange a success. Not ready to bring in Harry or anything, especially as emotional as the other man now was, but at least he’d be able to pick Daisy up without incident. It was a start.

He held hands with Eggsy again on the walk home, smiling when he felt the younger man’s head rest on his shoulder. This neighbourhood was easy-going. No one said a word to them, and he saw only a couple of glares. There were a couple of admiring glances, too, balancing everything out. _Yes, he IS mine, and looking is all you get._ That made Merlin smile.

The next thought, though, caught him oddly by surprise. _I’m happy. We’re happy. Happy and in love._ It still seemed absurd sometimes, that this mad scheme of theirs had actually worked. His heart swelled uncomfortably when they got home and Eggsy went right to Harry like he did every day, kissing him hello deep and soft and sweet. _Getting sappy in my old age._

Of course Merlin followed suit, relishing the feeling of his lover in his arms, kissing him just the way he knew Harry liked. Harry was adorably disheveled by the time they let him go back to the chicken he was making for dinner, listening to Harry mock-grumble about how on earth they were going to stay fed when he started back to work the next week.

“I imagine we'll eat a lot of takeout, but we'll live." Eggsy pecked them both on the cheek. Gonna go up and change out of the suit, yeah?” And he was away, bounding up the stairs. Merlin envied him his boundless energy. 

"So, this mission he's off on in the morning." Harry may not be officially back at work as Arthur, but he'd been diligently keeping up with all active missions for some time now. "You're not worried about the size of the strike team?" Alpha team was the smallest at four members, but they were the best of the best. 

"It looks like the best call right now. The militia has numbers on their side, of course, but when isn't that the case?" Merlin tried to tell himself that he and Harry were both nervous because it was another adventure into the American South, this time to capture and destroy a classified weapon that had gone missing from a military depot in Belarus. Bloody Soviets just leaving their dirty laundry where any jackass with enough connections could seize it and sell it to the highest bidder. Hell, Merlin suspected the Soviets did it on purpose, just to wreak as much havoc as they could on their way out.

God knew that Kingsman had been dealing with stolen Soviet whatnot since the damned Wall came down.

"Very true. I just don't like the thought of him in that hellhole. But that's not the point, is it?" Harry let Merlin take the cutting board and knives to wash, while he tended the cooking food.

"Funny how out of all the places we go, we tend to think of America as the hellhole." Merlin quirked a smile.

"Not so funny." Harry couldn't quite bring himself to smile over it all, not yet. "I must say, I've sat through some hateful screeds in my time and kept my mouth shut in the name of a mission, but that place, those people." He shuddered. "Right up there with the worst of the worst."

Merlin finished the washing up and wrapped an arm around Harry from behind, resting his chin on his lover's shoulder. "I'm sorry, darling. I didn't mean to be flippant."

"You weren't. I'm over-sensitive." Harry shook his head. "All Eggsy has to do is shoot them, not listen to them." 

"And for that I'm truly grateful." Eggsy had snuck back downstairs -- trying to sneak up on his lovers was a constant game, and one he usually lost -- and heard the last bit. "I heard enough when you was in that church. Also, got ya."

"Yes, yes, you did." Merlin and Harry suddenly realised that Eggsy was wearing **those** pyjama bottoms. The dark blue silk ones Harry had bought for him on a whim. The ones that sat low on his hips and showed off the sensual curve of muscle that crept down into the waistband. What was worse, he was wearing them with a tee shirt probably two sizes too small, so that a lean expanse of his belly showed at the bottom hem. "Jesus Fucking Christ. You're not getting out of eating dinner before you get fucked, you know that I trust?" 

"Oh, Merlin, always such a tyrant," Eggsy sighed dramatically. "But I am starving, so good on you both for the self control."

**

Over the chicken, steamed veggies and potatoes, Eggsy looked at them in turn, holding his wine glass in his hand casually, and just as casually saying, "I've been thinking. I want you two to spank me."

Whatever he was going to say, neither of them expected that. "But...you said that you didn't want that..." Harry started gently.

"I know what I said, but now..." Eggsy shrugged and took a drink of his wine. "Now it's sorta all I can think about. I guess I wanna own it, you know? It turns me on so much, and I can't help but wonder what it'd be like with the ones I love. It started to piss me off, that they could take something from me that I didn't want to give away." The sleazy professor, Dean.

"I, for one, wholeheartedly endorse that plan. I mean, have you seen your arse? I don't think I've ever seen one so ripe for a nice spanking." Merlin had to shift in his seat just to contend with the sudden erection. 

"Yeah, you like the sound of that. Figured you would." Eggsy looked over at Harry. "What about you, love?"

"How could I not want anything that will make you happy?" Harry smiled. His own idea of incorporating pain into sex play was the pain from trying not to come too fast and the occasional slap on the arse. But with Eggsy...well, the younger man did have a way of making him try (and love) things he would have never thought he would. 

"Good. So we're in agreement--I leave in the morning with a very sore arse." Eggsy grinned in triumph.

"Oh, yes you will," Merlin promised, suddenly unable to concentrate on the meal.

**

Dinner dishes were cleared, and Eggsy was obviously about to just explode in the most adorable fashion. He pestered both of them and was generally unhelpful in cleaning up for once, trying to cop a feel at every possible juncture in the proceedings. 

Merlin was just putting the last dish up when he heard Harry moan from the vicinity of the kitchen island. _Incorrigible..._ Turning, he saw Eggsy pressed up against the taller man, sucking at the side of his neck and rubbing and squeezing at the half-hard cock hidden by his trousers. 

"I suppose that you just couldn't wait for the right time." Merlin slid in behind Eggsy and framed his narrow hips with his big hands. 

"Been trying to, but..." The younger man licked his lips and spoke, muffled, with his mouth still pressed lightly against Harry's throat. "Don't wanna wait anymore." 

"Nor should you," Harry murmured, gripping Eggsy by the chin and drawing him up for a long, messy, heated kiss. 

Merlin stood and watched them for long moments, enthralled. For all he was the household scold, it was really an act. Whatever his men wanted, they could have. He would make sure they had it, actually. Even if it meant missing dessert again. 

Finally he moved, coming up behind Eggsy and taking his slighter weight against his chest, allowing Harry to break the kiss and move it downward to the younger man's neck. Eggsy always got delightfully squirmy when you sucked just behind his ear. 

Merlin leaned down and murmured in the younger man's ear, "Always so hungry for us, aren't you, love?" His free hand slid down to cup Eggsy's arse, kneading it firmly through the thin silk, relishing the whining moan he provoked. "You take care of us so well; tonight let us take care of you."

"Mmm, tonight, you are definitely the star of the show," Harry agreed, tugging Eggsy's tee shirt up and off, then thumbing tiny nipples erect in the cool air. 

"God, if you...if you insist," Eggsy managed, shaky, almost scared of what came next. Or he would be, if he weren't so desperately aroused by the very idea. 

"We do," they murmured as one, Harry standing so that they could make their way up the stairs to the bedroom. 

"S'pose we can't do it here," Eggsy grumbled and whined, until Merlin informed him, "When we're done with you, you'll be lucky if you can fall over onto the bed before you pass out." Apparently, that was enough to shut him up.

Once upstairs, Eggsy looked at the two of them, unaccountably nervous and moving his hands around as if unsure where to put them. "There now," Merlin whispered, stepping in to calm him, to hold his hands in his own. "You've done nothing wrong. This is not a punishment." 

"What if...I want to be your bad boy?" It came out barely audible, a low murmur that they heard loud and clear.

"Then I would tell you to get on the bed on all fours. And don't argue about it, either, you're already down for a spanking." Merlin's voice shook, and Harry looked like he might just want to sneak out the door. "More than anything, though, I'd make sure you wanted to be our beautiful boy."

The 'boy' more than the spanking, even, was so very, very fraught. In the end, Eggsy turned his face up to look at both of them. "Only if you think I'm beautiful." From someone else, it would be the grossest false modesty. From Eggsy, it was genuine doubt, even now, even after everything they'd been through. 

"You're the most exquisite little thing we've ever seen," Harry answered, because comforting was much more in his line than spanking. "And we want to make you feel very good, even if you've been terribly bad."

"Well, I did...um. I wanked off in the toilet today, thinking about the other night and how we finally made Merlin howl." Eggsy's eyes were challenging, a little guilty. Perfect darling brat.

"And you didn't even tell us?" Merlin frowned, cocking his head. "Or wait till we could all enjoy it?"

"No...no, I'm sorry. I didn't. I was too turned on." Eggsy bit his lip and looked up through his lashes. 

"Jesus," Harry whispered, shifting around the sudden return of his erection. Something about that boy and his eyelashes and his gorgeous eyes. "You really are a right little tart."

"And we know what happens to little tarts who have no self control, don't we?" Merlin asked, only the outline of his hard prick in his trousers giving away his own feelings on the matter. 

"They get a spanking," Eggsy offered hopefully, relaxing a bit into the role, into the play. Into the complete trust and welcome he felt from his lovers.

"Oh yes, they do," Merlin assured him, shaking his head firmly when Eggsy went right for the drawstring to his pyjamas. "No no no. Those stay on for now." He went to the bed and sat down on the side, patting his lap. "Never mind getting on all fours. Over here, now. Arse up." 

When Eggsy hastened to comply, Merlin felt the muscled curve of his buttocks through the silk, groaning at the firm roundness. Harry stripped down to his trousers and crawled up on the bed, stretching out to lay a hand on Eggsy's head, rubbing the back of his neck. 

The first blow came through the fabric, and was firm but gentle. Eggsy gasped a little, rubbing his head against Harry's hand and lifting his arse up for more. None of the blows that followed were limp or weak--they were Merlin's considerable strength held back. Eggsy fetishized their strength a bit, liked to feel small sometimes even though he was every bit their equal. It was something Merlin had noticed a while ago. So he gave that to Eggsy: controlled strength, coiled blows that hinted at more to come. 

When he stopped, Eggsy whined in his throat and squirmed in his lap. "Stand up and take off the pyjamas, Eggsy," Merlin ordered calmly, despite the bulge in his own trousers. While Eggsy found his feet, Merlin murmured in Harry's ear, "Get the lube. Open him up while I spank him." No one would want to wait to have that arse once it was all red and tender. 

Eggsy's pyjama pants hit the floor, showing off a dick so hard you could use it to cut diamonds, already approaching desperate, even though the main event was yet to start. "Where do you want me, Merlin? Back over your lap?" 

"Mm, yes." Merlin moved so his back was against the headboard, making it easier for Harry to do his part, and then he patted his lap. "C'mon, boy. You're just getting started." He was feeling indulgent, so he let the whispered 'oh, thank God' go as Eggsy scrambled into position. "Spread your legs wide, sweet boy. Harry has work to do." 

Eggsy shivered and spread himself wide over Merlin's lap, arse up in the air and hips canted up. Harry's slick thumb went to his pucker, rubbing it firmly as the first bare-skin blow landed with a crack. It jolted Eggsy's body and he cried out, voice low and aroused, not high-pitched and in pain. 

Merlin could feel the boy's cock, the head wet against his trousers, and he knew very well that their beautiful boy was going to come from this. Not only that, given his past experiences, Merlin thought he deserved to come from this. Time to take his fantasy and explode it out for him. He gave Eggsy a rhythm, focusing right on the sweet curve of his arse, reddening it thoroughly before distributing the blows more equally. His free hand was a comforting weight at the back of Eggsy's neck, and a constant stream of assurances of what a good boy he was, all was forgiven, such a beautiful little thing slipped from both Harry and Merlin's lips. 

The low cry when Harry worked two fingers into Eggsy's grasping little hole just about did them all in, Harry moaning in turn with the heat and clinging slickness inside his lover. Eggsy had two handfuls of the duvet, and was rocking back into every blow even as his eyes stung with tears. 

Just when he thought Eggsy was going to deny himself an orgasm, Harry found his prostate and rubbed against it, timing it precisely with Merlin's next blow. That took Eggsy's last inhibition away and he cried out almost pitifully as the climax scoured through him. His prick jerked and spurted all over Merlin's nice work trousers, but bugger it, who cared. He almost came himself watching it, feeling it happen right in his arms. 

Eggsy barely caught his breath and was still shaking when he inquired, "This good boy needs to get fucked. Now."

"Bloody hell," growled Merlin. "All fours on the bed, sideways." Harry had lost his trousers at some point, and he crawled around to cradle Eggsy's head and give him a kiss. Merlin wasn't feeling so tender. He felt like ravishing the boy, and that was what he was going to do, even as he listened to Harry murmuring to Eggsy in between kisses, "So beautiful. Did that feel good, darling? Mmm, yes, you were so beautiful." 

It was sweet, but all Merlin could think about was getting his flies down and shoving himself as deep into Eggsy's body as he could. The feel of that hole around his dick, giving and tight all at once, made him growl and the feeling of his woolen trousers against hot, tender flesh spurred Eggsy to rock back into the thrust. 

"Fuck my mouth," Eggsy murmured to Harry, for all that Merlin could barely hear around the blood pounding in his own ears. Harry fed his cock into Eggsy's welcoming mouth, groaning when it was promptly swallowed down to the root. 

This was a familiar position for the three of them, in various combinations, and they had it down to an art, sucking, fucking, and taking it up the arse. It was always heady, always hot and tense and yet oddly comforting and relaxing, particularly for the one in the middle. Eggsy let himself be fucked, tried to keep his mouth clever and his arse tight, but mostly he was just a melted puddle of boy with a very sore, wonderfully sore backside. 

Merlin surprised him when he reached around Eggsy's finger-bruised hip and found a hard cock. He hadn't even realised he'd gotten hard again in the overall haze of pheromones and arousal, but the moment Merlin's hand wrapped around his dick he moaned helplessly around Harry's cock.

He was dimly aware of Harry and Merlin kissing, and Harry, bless him, was the one who came first, deep in Eggsy's throat for once and not on his face. Harry pulled out and scooted down to kiss Eggsy in turn, cradling his flushed, slightly teary face in his hands and murmuring sweet words of encouragement. They were still kissing when Eggsy's orgasm hit him, making him quiver and mewl into Harry's mouth. The second orgasm in such short order cored him right out.

Merlin purposefully held out as long as humanly possible, just to watch his lovers come apart at the seams. When they were spent, he buried himself in Eggsy's arse and let go, clutching the boy to him with bruising tenderness until he was past done. Only when he'd grown too soft to stay inside did he pull the younger man down into his arms, making the big spoon behind him and letting Harry twine up with him in front. 

"You were perfect. Tell us how you're feeling," Merlin murmured into his ear. 

"Roughly speaking...incredible. I feel incredible." Eggsy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, snuggling into Merlin and pulling Harry along. "There was a bit of internal drama, right at the start, but there was just no way in hell you two could ever be like them." 

"Too right," Harry answered, nuzzling along Eggsy's jaw. "We love you beyond measure, for one." 

"Yes, we certainly do," Merlin added, tightening his arms a fraction. He looked over Eggsy's shoulder and caught Harry's eyes. There was a storm coming, in the endorphin-saturated, post-coital bliss. Sure enough, a few heartbeats later, Eggsy surprised himself by convulsing in sudden, violent sobs. 

He'd never stopped, was the problem. He'd never taken the time to mourn for what was taken from him. By Dean, by Professor Wright. He'd rolled with it, dealt with it, but he'd never acknowledged just how deep those wounds ran until they were lanced and bled out in the safety of their bed. 

There was nothing to say, and this was no time for some deep talk, so Harry and Merlin just held him tight in an almost suffocating embrace. 'Shhh' 'Oh, sweetheart' 'we love you' 'you're safe'. Little streams of nonsense that eventually soothed Eggsy and brought him back. 

"They had no right," Eggsy said thickly, around a swollen throat, scrubbing almost angrily at the tears he'd shed for them, because of them. "They had no fucking right."

"No, they didn't." Harry stroked Eggsy's short, soft hair back off his forehead. "You were just a child. You should have been protected and cherished."

"But you are now. You know that, yes? You are cherished. Treasured." Merlin loosened his death grip on Eggsy and kissed his shoulder. 

"Yeah, I know it. And I thank my fucking stars every day for it, too." Eggsy was worn out, and Merlin let him go with a kiss on the cheek. 

"I'm going to get some warm flannels and some water, yeah? Harry's going to stay with you." 

Eggsy nodded, and Harry wrapped him tighter into his arms. The two of them were still whispering to each other when Merlin rid himself of his trousers to pad naked downstairs for supplies. 

**

The next morning came too soon, and Eggsy was up just before dawn, heading off to the office to get kitted out and on the plane with his team. Merlin still nursed a bad feeling about this mission. There was something. Not anything Charlie missed, not anything objective. He put it down to worrying because it was the same part of the U.S. where he almost lost Harry. 

Only much more in the backwoods, and much more isolated, and much more militant. 

Eggsy was moving just a tad stiffly, but he took some pain medication and promised he'd stretch out properly before the flight. He was all smiles, adorably well-satisfied with himself, and he teased them both mercilessly before kissing them goodbye. "Just to remind you what you're missing." As if they could forget.

After Eggsy left and the other two had showered, Merlin went to fetch Daisy. He was on his best manners as Michelle opened the door, exchanging random pleasantries about the weather and answering her questions about when Eggsy was coming back with the kind of vague certainties that would put her at ease. Daisy went into his arms willingly, adorable as always in her tiny uniform. 

After dropping her at school he went in, meeting with Charlie for a morning status meeting on all active ops. There was something about the young mathematician this morning. He was practically glowing, and Percival was smiling like, well, not like Percival at all, usually. 

All the other ops were proceeding smoothly, all agents accounted for and well. Eggsy would be in transit most of the morning and afternoon, with the op itself scheduled for after dark. It was still good to hear him over comms, joking with the strike team and the pilot when the trip got rough.

There was just enough time to collect Daisy and take her home, swing by to pick up Harry (who was insisting on coming into the office early for this mission) and head back before the drop. The drop went off without a hitch--everyone hit their target and made not a peep, and Galahad and the strike team advanced toward the compound. The goal was not to engage unless necessary. The primary objective was to find and destroy the experimental weapon, rendering it useless. 

Eggsy had the schematics memorised, and the whole strike team had learned the layout of the compound. There were non-combatants there, and no one wanted to take a chance on hurting them. Stealth was the name of this particular game. There were only two guards on duty in front of the shack that housed the weapon ahead of its delivery, and they were dispatched quickly and quietly. Eggsy went in, and it took twenty long, agonizing minutes to break into the housing and destroy all the wiring. 

After the guidance systems were taken out, the weapon was useless. It was a method for delivering a payload virtually anywhere in the world, undetectable to radar. The current payload was a simple surface to air missile, easy to render harmless. 

And then, on the way back out of the shack, everything went horribly, irrevocably tits up. 

No one could have guessed that the compound boys liked to slip their keepers and go out and play in the woods at night. Or that they could scream as loudly as they did at finding five interlopers in their midst. It wasn't a huge surprise, though, that the adults came running at top speed and surrounded the boys and the strike team all together in a circle, forcing the Kingsman agents to choose between shooting children and getting caught. 

Not one of the agents risked it. 

Merlin and Harry listened with a blank, utter horror. There was no out for this, nothing they could suggest in Eggsy's ear. Just how to manage the damage. Eggsy was standing in front of his squad, arms up, and despite Merlin's urgent murmuring in his ear to blend in with the group, to deny them a focal point to their rage, the young man clearly, almost defiantly declared, "I'm the leader."

He probably thought that it would spare his men, make them concentrate on him and just shuttle the rest into confinement, where he knew they would be rescued soon enough. It didn't work that way. Harry caught his breath, knowing damned well what would happen next. One by one, the four members of the strike team hit the ground, each with a bullet in the brain. 

Eggsy was the only one left standing.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy is captured, tortured, and oh god, you guys. Harry and Merlin are off their heads with fear and worry. Michelle starts to come around. No good feels, just lots of pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning WARNING WARNING: Explicit violence, including sexual assault. To balance that out, we have everyone else being their BAMF selves. Oh, and hopefully it goes without saying, but it's evil horrible people using the nasty pejoratives in this. I neither use nor condone their use in the real world.

Eggsy could barely breathe. It was his first realisation upon awakening, hanging with his arms bound over his head and his feet barely touching the dirt floor. Then there was the smell, foetid and foul, sickly sweet like overripe fruit and rotten meat. He managed to crack open a swollen eye and look around, to find the corpses of his strike team piled haphazardly in the corner of a metal shack. 

He’d done that to them. One awful, terrible miscalculation and he’d got them killed. And now, it would seem, he would be joining them soon enough. Other realisations meant little after those first few—he was naked, his face was swollen and crusted with blood from where they’d hit him with the butt of a rifle, and he was dangerously, disastrously overheated. 

_Harry and Merlin have to be out of their minds._ It was a thought that came with guilt, because all of this, all of the bad calls, they were all on him. His team was dead, his lovers were in agony, all because he was stupid. He tried to remember his training—keep breathing deeply (not possible), relax as much as you can within the bonds (not at all), and assess your ability to free yourself. That last was something he could focus on, at least. 

The bonds were rope, thick and coarse, already rubbing blisters and sores on his narrow wrists. They were tight, too, brutally so, but he twisted his hands within them, setting his jaw as the blisters broke and slicked his wrists up with blood. The rope was attached to a hook on a chain, so he hauled himself up to work at the knots with his teeth. It was only possible to hang like that for a minute at most, even with his upper body strength, and he wasn’t making any progress. 

All too soon he had to drop down because booted footsteps were coming his way. Three men stomped into the shed, two of middling height and one slightly above average. They didn’t look like international arms dealers, that was for sure. If anything, they looked like they should be hanging out a local honky tonk testing out that new open carry law. 

“Hello, fellas,” Eggsy spat out with a mouthful of blood, forcing his eyes to a brittle cheerfulness. “I ain’t gonna tell you nothin’, so you may as well not bother.” It was worth a shot.

The tallest one seemed to be the leader, dressed in paramilitary fatigues where the others sported worn, torn jeans and flannel shirts. “Oh, you’re a funny guy, with that funny accent. But you don’t know what we got planned for ya, do ya?”

“Got a pretty good idea.” Eggsy should probably stick to stoic silence rather than giving lip, but oh well. 

All three of them laughed, and they sounded like a pack of hyenas. They even circled him like one, reaching out and poking at his naked flesh. One of the underlings surprisingly managed to put two and two together, putting his fingers over the bruises Merlin had left on his hips, squeezing them tight. “Oh ho, look here, boys. We got ourselves a pretty little faggot, don’t we?”

Eggsy felt his soul cringe, his balls try to crawl up into his body, anything to get away from that touch. He was sure that they would get around to beating on him, but knowing this bunch they were obsessed with the evil fags, who were apparently hated by God and going straight to hell. Why was he so sure that there was a loophole in their twisted logic where raping a queer to prove your dominance over him was just part of the natural order? 

He jerked away from the grip, growling a little. “Aww, you don’t like me touchin’ you where your faggot boyfriend did? Well, too fuckin’ bad, pretty boy.” The man behind him slapped his ass as hard as he could, igniting the low-level pain from the old bruises in a way that wasn’t even remotely erotic. Thankfully. 

The leader came over and looked at his ass next, actually prying him open. “Aw, now, you’re gonna make our job so easy.” 

Eggsy tried to tune them out, but they were just too close. Just too **real**.

**

For a long, aching moment Merlin and Harry stared at each other, dumbstruck as Eggsy was taken prisoner. You know it could happen on any mission, any time, but now here they were, and their lover was in the deepest kind of trouble. When that moment broke, they both started talking into their headsets, pulling people out of bed to get in right now for a consult to organise an extraction. 

It was tightly-controlled chaos when Charlie arrived, Percival in his wake, and began to demand more and more data from more and more sources more and more quickly. The mathematician was barely bothering with writing down anything, just cryptic shorthand equations that no one could decipher but him. At one point, Percival went to him and forced him to stop for a short span of breaths, leaning in and murmuring something into his ear. For a moment, Charlie didn’t react, and then he nodded and went back to work. 

At one point, Charlie waved Percival over, and murmured something back. Apparently, since Percival was now the official genius-wrangler, it fell to him to deliver a message to Arthur and Merlin that they weren’t much going to like. 

“Charlie believes it would be wise to bring in Mrs. Unwin and Eggsy’s little sister. Put them on lockdown.” Percival knew there was no point in mincing words.

“In case he starts talking.” Merlin’s voice was flat.

“Just so,” Percival agreed gently. 

Arthur cleared his throat, reminding them that he was there and, in fact, in charge. “I’ll go. You lot call the table and be ready when I return. I want wheels up in four hours.” It was an ambitious ask, but not impossible—the goal was for this to work, not for yet more men and women to die or be captured.

**

The car pulled up in front of Harry’s old flat, and he got out, tugging on his suit jacket subtly and trying to put on his bravest face. He’d had a chance to break down on the solitary journey back into London, but he hadn’t taken it. He wouldn’t give himself the luxury of it until their boy was safe and sound once more. 

At least now there was no room for discomfort or embarrassment when he knocked on Michelle’s door. It took a while for her to answer, clad in a dressing gown and obviously awakened from sleep. “Oh my God, it’s you.” 

“Harry Hart. Yes, ma’am. I’m here about Eggsy, may I come in?” She swayed to one side and he took that as invitation enough, closing the door behind him. “First of all, he’s not dead.” _Oh fuck, he cannot be dead. He cannot. Be. Dead._

“You might wanna lead with that next time. Would you like to explain why the hell you’re back here darkening my door? Do you work for the same whatever-it-is that my boy works for?” She pulled her dressing gown tighter around herself. 

“It’s called Kingsman, and you’re right, it’s not a tailor. It’s an international, independent espionage agency. Your son, like your late husband, is a Kingsman agent.” He watched her reaction carefully, unsure how she was going to react, while all the while screaming inside. 

“Like a spy?”

“Of sorts.” The fact that he’d said those exact words to Eggsy made his heart constrict, and he felt the iron control on his emotions slipping in ways they never would have dared before a bullet ripped through his brain.

“And something’s happened to him?” Michelle was pale now, shaking. 

“He…he was captured on a mission last night. We will get him back, but…out of an overabundance of caution we need to bring you into headquarters.” Harry could say and believe all day that Eggsy would never talk, but there are worse tortures than being put in front of a speeding train and a quick but messy demise. Much, much worse. 

“Oh my god.” Her hand went to her mouth, and Harry was quick enough to catch her by the upper arms and guide her to a seat before she lost her balance. It was a lot to take in. He wished he could indulge in a proper faint. 

“Michelle, you must listen to me. I know how much you love your son. I love him, too, beyond reason. Right now we must both be strong for him, and for Daisy. She cannot know how afraid we are, yes? And we must get her somewhere she will be completely safe.” Focusing Michelle on her other child’s well-being should get her moving.

Indeed, she nodded slowly, visibly pulling herself together. “So you’re number three, then.” At his nod, she shook her head tiredly. “My boy has a type, don’t he?” Tall, handsome and old enough to be his father. “I’ll get Daisy and pack a bag. Won’t take ten minutes.” She rose, much more steady than when she went down, and went up the stairs, leaving Harry alone with this thoughts.

They were a dangerous place to be. Experience had shown him, in intimate detail, what one human being could do to another. For all the horror of it, even James’ death had been fast. The worst thought, of course, was that Eggsy would come home to them in a body bag. The second worst, though, was that they would lose their exuberant, joyful, devil-may-care lover forever. 

Wiping angrily at his eyes as he heard Michelle coming back downstairs, he forced his face as close to a smile as it could manage for Daisy’s sake. She was sleep-mussed but dressed, and even managed a drowsy ‘lo’ for Harry. He wanted to take her and hold her tight, but he hadn’t the right, had he? So instead he took Michelle’s bags like the gentleman he was, and called JB to follow them out to the waiting car. 

For some reason, JB riding in a car like a person was hilarious to Daisy, and her giggles made that fake smile real, if only for a heartbeat. Here was a small piece of Eggsy, and he could protect her. And her mother. 

“She is…very precious to Eggsy,” he told Michelle. “He would do anything to keep her safe.” 

“It’s always been that way, ever since the midwife put her in his arms. Dean wasn’t around, of course, but Eggsy held my hand the whole time. He was just a kid, but…” She shrugged helplessly. “You couldn’t stop him from taking on the world. Sometimes I wish he hadn’t been so good at it, at taking care of her. I woulda had to get my act together. But then what if I wasn’t able to?” Someone had been reading some self-help books or maybe even seeing a therapist since Dean’s death.

“He is very precious, in his own right.” Precious to him, to Merlin, to everyone who bloody met him, practically. 

“You really do love him. You…and Aaron. He’s not just the bit of rough you brought home. Sorry for being crude, but he’s a pretty lad, and I’ve seen it happen.” She’d seen so much more than she’d ever expected when she married the handsome, upstanding Marine as a girl. 

“Never. Never, Michelle. He’s our…life. He’s everything.” Harry took a shaky breath and forced himself to look out the window. 

Michelle just nodded, mulling it over. “How often do you get them back, when this sorta thing happens?”

“Quite often. Quite often indeed.” They do not leave agents behind, and they would never, ever leave their Galahad. 

“Here, I think she’s wantin’ you.” And with that, Michelle passed Daisy to Harry. It was a sign of trust, of acceptance, and he gathered the little girl into a hug, breathing in the scent of her hair. “Don’t go cryin’ on her, or she’ll start, and I’ll start, and then the bloody dog’ll probably start.”

**

He wasn’t even sure what they were shoving into him anymore. It wasn’t like they were letting him see—it was much more fun if he didn’t. Always the questions--at first they weren’t even about who he was, what agency, how he’d found out about their treasure. No, they were about what it was like to be a dirty faggot, about his faggot boyfriend, about what a slut he was. How much could that ass take—isn’t that all a faggot thinks about? Taking it up the ass? 

Eggsy hadn’t said a word through it all, and that was making them angry. They had the hilarious idea to start with vegetables from the garden outside, going bigger and bigger until tears pricked his eyes and he felt himself tear, the scent of fresh blood sharp and almost welcome in comparison to the stink of rotting bodies. 

How they managed the stench he had no idea. Presumably they simply weren’t human. When they’d exhausted the varieties of vegetables at hand, they turned to other objects: tool handles of all shapes and sizes, the wooden handles of rakes and brooms, shoved far too deep, so deep that he couldn’t stop his gorge rising, vomiting over his shoes. It was the most sickening thing he’d ever felt, the unforgiving wood too, too deep and too rough. 

After he’d sicked up on his feet they switched their questions, making them less prurient and more tactical. Apparently, they’d had their fun and now it was time for business. The last object was removed, and the leader stood in front of him with a big .357 revolver, making a show of loading one bullet. _Russian Roulette. Well, at least a bullet in the head is fast._ The part of his mind still capable of thought was far away from the gibbering, terrified thing he’d locked away in a corner of his brain. 

“What, you think we’re pointin’ this at your head?” All three of them laughed. “Nah, we just got a much better idea.” The man stepped behind him and eased the cold, hard steel into Eggsy’s arse, almost like a lover would with a toy, but he was so torn and bloody it was sheer agony. His gut clenched and he bit off a whimper as the man fucked him with the gun, then started asking his questions. 

“Who are you?” No answer, trigger pulled. Nothing. 

“Who do you work for?” No answer, trigger pulled. Nothing.

It went on for two more turns, and miraculously Eggsy was still alive. There was no way to bluster around this, or make clever comebacks, so he just kept his jaw clenched around his silence, holding it to himself like his own treasure. One they couldn’t have. 

As he’d half-expected, the leader threw the gun aside in disgust. “Fucking idiot. Are you some kind of retard? Do you not know that’d kill you?” 

At that, Eggsy managed a look that was pure ‘fuck you’ around the swelling of his face, tossed over his shoulder. It earned him a few vicious punches to the kidneys. 

“Go ahead, dose him.” The leader stepped out of his frame of reference, and one of his henchman stabbed a needle into his neck, injecting him with a sedative. 

**

Merlin paced the control room, focused tightly on the stream of intel coming into his headset and through his clipboard. The compound was some offshoot of the FLDS, founded by some ex-Vietnam veterans who had made plenty of black market contacts in-country and maintained them. By all accounts, it wasn’t true religious fervour that drove the founders, simply a hatred of the government and a desire for multiple wives and large amounts of ordnance.

The religious bent had taken off in the second generation, but always with a militarism attached. It was only natural they were white supremacist, separatist, wanting to reclaim America for their one true god in some blaze of glory. All the boys were trained from the time they could hold a rifle, and the girls married off as soon as they bled. 

What do you do when the children are active combatants?

Merlin only wished this was the first time they’d had this problem. In the DRC, their ops were constantly plagued by twelve year olds with AKs and all the ferocity of fanaticism. Casualties were inevitable. How do you decide whom to save? A hut full of girls and women about to be dragged out to rape and murder, or a squad of pubescent boys set to do the deed? Percival had caught that particular nightmare, and refused to work in that area of the world ever again. 

The answer was, of course, that you save the defenceless. Always. But if one were to ask Percival, he would no doubt say the choice was agonising. The boots on the ground may be small, but their assault rifles were just as deadly. 

Harry returned with Michelle and Daisy, ensconced them in their guest quarters and then met everyone at table. Merlin brought up the schematic of the compound. Charlie pointed out the detail he’d been able to pull from satellite images of the place, using a special process he’d developed for the NSA (and a lot of time cranking on the mainframe) to fill in details ordinary imaging cannot provide. They now knew where the families were kept, and thanks to the charming custom of locking up their women at night they knew from the radio chatter they picked up around the compound when that happened. 

If they went in after 10:00 pm, they would only encounter patrols of armed men…and boys. But armed nonetheless. The grown men tended to be very routine and martial about their patrolling, but there was no good pattern around the boys’. They tended to wander the grounds with their guns, feeling much older than they were. There were guard towers every quarter mile, each manned, and they would have to be taken out along the entire western side of the compound. That meant a hell of a lot of sharpshooting from Percival, who would be providing that initial quiet opportunity for entry and then joining in with rear enforcements. 

Merlin would lead this retrieval personally, with Lancelot as his number two. The goal was to liberate Galahad and retrieve the strike team for burial if at all possible. They chose a secondary goal to destroy the four weapon stores that Charlie had identified, and assigned agents to each one—Kai, Agravain, Bedivere, and Gawain. Charlie would run the op from HQ, something that seemed to make him turn several shades paler under that olive skin. It didn’t help that he’d have Harry breathing down his neck on his first time out of the gate and his own lover in the field.

And they were absolutely, under no circumstances, to lose any more lives because of who was holding the gun. Anyone armed was fair game. 

“Right, then.” Merlin swiped the table and the schematics went to everyone’s clipboards. “Any questions? No? Load out in one hour.” 

Everyone filed out to get to work, leaving Harry and Merlin alone. “Are you sure you’re up for this, Merlin?” It was the expected first question out of Harry’s mouth. 

“Oh, aye. I am most definitely up for this.” He went to Harry and brushed the hair back off his forehead, turning the man’s face up and kissing him gently. It was a reassuring connection after the chaos and misery of the last eight hours. 

What choice had Harry but to accept Merlin’s word? Merlin was formidable, and he would get this job done. “You’ll not believe it, but not only did Michelle come with me willingly, she…seems to have…well, accepted things.” 

“Even after you told her where her boy really was?” That did seem miraculous.

“Even so. I think it helped her, after all these years, to understand what really happened to her husband. She’s off her head with worry, of course, but it would have been so much worse if we’d invented some ridiculous lie to get her to a safe house. Better she’s here, and knows.” Harry rubbed at his good eye, exhausted but too pumped up with adrenaline to admit to it. “I’ll alert the US branch that we’re operating a large scale mission in their back yard, and to expect medevac to their hospital facility outside DC.” 

The US Kingsman branch was small, and focused on keeping America’s many covert agencies intact and uncorrupted. It was a full-time job, and so missions like these often fell to UK HQ. For all their size, though, each branch HQ kept a top-notch medical facility, even if it was part of a bigger facility funded by generous grants from mysterious NGOs. 

“Eggsy won’t make it back here with the wounds he’s likely to have.” Merlin hated to agree, but they both knew what happened to prisoners all too well. 

“Do you think we’ll get our boy back?” Harry’s voice choked, allowing himself one small moment of weakness.

“No, love. No. We’ll get back someone else. And we’ll love him just as much.” 

**

Eggsy woke in excruciating pain. The metal chair he was chained to was painfully hot in the stifling room, and it had sharp edges that cut into his arms, legs, and back. His ass was still bleeding, and his guts were cramping so hard he thought he might pass out again. A sharp slap across his swollen face disabused him of that notion quickly enough.

He managed to crack his eyes open just enough to see that all three of his interrogators had rubber hoses, and that there was a car battery hooked up with jumper cables sitting on the filthy floor. More than anything, Eggsy was tired. Just…tired. The pain had become a huge, impenetrable, unknowable thing, so big it didn’t even bear thinking on. _Wonder if that’s the torturer’s playbook…or if it’s why torture don’t really work like it does in the movies._ Wear them down till they’re just too tired to resist, or hurt them till they squeal. _How about I just die on ‘em? That’d teach ‘em._

But he couldn’t, could he? He had people. He had to fight this, the horrible sickly grey that permeated the edges of his vision, the certainty that something inside him was terribly broken. No, Harry had come back to them. He would do the same. 

They peppered questions at him as the hoses fell, and he didn’t bother with snark. No point, really. It was easier to just let them make him scream till his voice gave out. He felt ribs go, looked down to see ugly bruises blossoming across his midsection that he knew indicated internal bleeding. He did pass out again, one last time, when they brought a heavy rubber hose down on his genitals and he felt something burst. There was no voice for screaming, just black oblivion.

The peace of unconsciousness lasted only as long as they took to hook up the car battery. 

Ten minutes later, the world exploded. 

**

The entry was textbook. Percival took down five snipers in five stations in less than five minutes before joining up with his own strike team, and by the time they joined the action, it was all but done. 

The four agents assigned to the weapons caches had them up in flames, and Merlin was kicking down the door to a metal shed. Lancelot shot her rifle three times with precision, then went back and shot several more times for good measure before coming back out the door and briefly gagging before going back in. Merlin found Eggsy tied to the chair, the wicked crimps of the jumper cables still hooked into his flesh. 

“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here. You’re safe, we have you now. Oh god, we have you.” The chains were a fucking beast, but Lancelot found the keys on the leader’s body and handed them over without a word to him, but calling in medevac to the shed. 

Merlin got Eggsy free and gathered his limp body into his arms. He felt…wrong. God, he felt wrong. Still breathing shallowly, pulse a bare thing, but so much blood. So much. God, what had they done to his sweet boy? 

“Didn’t…” Eggsy’s voice was so wrecked Merlin could scarcely hear him. “Didn’t tell ‘em nothin’.” It shattered what was left of Merlin’s heart, and he gathered the smaller body into his arms, heedless of the blood and God only knew what else he was smearing all over himself. 

“Oh, sweetheart, I know, I know you never would, you’re my brave lad,” he whispered, willing that medical team to get the hell over here now. 

“Got ‘em killed, my fault…” Even after everything, he could still be fixated on whose fault it was that strike team Alpha died. Merlin supposed being trapped in a hot building with four putrefying corpses would keep it top of mind. 

“No. No, you made a call, and it made sense. These fuckers, though, they didn’t think right, not like you…” What else could he say? Merlin just hugged the unresisting body tighter until he provoked a mewl of pain. Thankfully, the two person med team showed up and put Eggsy onto a stretcher, hustling him out of there under guard from Merlin and Lancelot, who stopped to detail a strike team with gathering the bodies inside. 

Once on the relative safety of the big military jet, the med team extended the legs of the stretcher down to make a stable bed and began their examination. From the look on their faces it was grim, and they’d run an IV line and hung a bag of blood and another of fluids in moments. “He needs surgery. Nothing we can do but keep him stable until we get to US branch.” 

They covered Eggsy with a thick blanket against the shock, and within a few minutes everyone was accounted for on the jet, including four body bags. Only four—they’d lost no one else. Lancelot looked at Eggsy, then at Merlin, her brow furrowing. “Reports indicate no non-combatant casualties, and none on our end. Is he gonna make it, Merlin?” That was her bloody best friend lying there.

Merlin couldn’t even answer her. 

Percival was on comms with Charlie, reassuring him that he was okay. Merlin was talking to Harry, trying to do the same for Eggsy. Harry was already on a plane with Michelle, leaving Daisy in the capable care of one of Kingsman’s nannies back at the Eppes house with Maggie. 

At one point on the relatively short flight they ran through the two units of blood and Percival volunteered to get hooked up, since he was O-negative. Between that and the med team’s good work, Eggsy was still breathing by the time they handed him off to the doctors and watched the doors close behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. What the hell is wrong with me, ending on a cliffhanger AGAIN. Feel free to berate me properly in the comments.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’ll find a way, that’s what we’ll do. No matter how long it takes. That’s what love is.” Possibility and patience. Infinite and indefatigable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning this time for frank discussions of the medical after-effects of torture, and for discussion of depression. Also, I am not a doctor, so I am winging it here.

The white doors swung shut behind Eggsy’s bloody body with a whoosh that sounded like a whip crack in the silent hospital hall. Merlin, Roxy and Iain stood there, relieved of their charge and utterly at a loss. Iain, true to form, went for coffees for all three of them, and Roxy paced the waiting room with Merlin, who was shaking—whether with fear or rage no one could tell. 

Another hour until Harry and Michelle landed, and Harry was on comms in Merlin’s ear, desperate for information Merlin didn’t have. Couldn’t have. They didn’t turn around and come right back out the door, Roxy reasoned, so that had to mean Eggsy at least had a fighting chance. It was the kind of wishful thinking that Merlin only wished was confined to the young.

He tried to think back to all of the times he’d been in waiting rooms, waiting to see if Harry lived or died, unable to let too much emotion show. He should be battening down now, not letting the world see that he loved the boy behind the doors, but he just couldn’t. Didn’t have it in him anymore. 

One of the A&E doctors came out after a half an hour. Because it was a Kingsman facility and an injury suffered in the line duty, the doctor spoke freely to the boy’s commanding officer and comrades. The list of injuries brought bile up the back of Merlin’s throat, and Roxy laid a hand on his shoulder for support. 

Eggsy had suffered a rupture to his lower intestine, which was by far and away the most life-threatening of his wounds. The risk of septic shock was very high, since it had been several hours since the rupture occurred. Beyond that, there were seven broken ribs. His spleen would have to be removed. He would lose a kidney in all likelihood. One testicle was ruptured and his genitals had been severely beaten. 

The doctor delivered the news in a kind but removed voice, watching Merlin collapse into a chair and Roxy turn green around the edges. They were prepping him for surgery immediately, and it was likely to be at least eight hours. He didn’t bother to tell them to go get some rest. It was obvious how much this young agent was loved. After he’d gone, Percival came back with the coffee and some pastries, and immediately just set them aside at the look on their faces. He didn’t ask for the laundry list, but Roxy gave him the brief overview in a hushed voice. 

Harry and Michelle arrived a few minutes later, and Merlin met them halfway across the room, practically throwing himself into Harry’s arms. “Oh God, he’s alive. Tell me he’s alive,” Harry whispered, so dire was Merlin’s greeting, so severe his shaking. 

“He is…right now.” To Merlin’s shock, when Harry let him go, Michelle hugged him. He sat them both down and told them, verbatim, what the doctor had told him. Harry buried his face in his hands, sobbing quietly while Merlin put an arm around his shoulders, and Michelle looked like she was slipping into shock. So much damage to such a small body. It was hard to remember he was a full-grown man and not a child. Not her baby.

What followed after were the longest ten hours of Harry’s and Michelle’s lives. Merlin had lived through this too many times already, and he had the foundation of it down. Harry had always been the one on the table—having bullets dug out of him, internal injuries repaired, head traumas healed. He’d never had to experience the opposite side of the equation. 

At first, Merlin resented Percival and Lancelot standing vigil with them. But soon enough he realised that Roxy was scared to death, too, and Iain was there to keep everyone fed, caffeinated, and generally provided-for. Of course he was on comms non-stop to Charlie, who was fretting long-distance. Eggsy had so many people who loved him now. So many who would never be the same if he slipped away on the table. 

Michelle, wrapped in Percival’s jacket against the chill of the hospital and impending shock, eventually cried it out against Merlin’s shoulder. The catharsis wore her out, and she dozed off, the only one able to get any rest at all. 

When he was sure Michelle was thoroughly out, Merlin looked over at Harry’s broken face and shook his head. “How the fuck are we gonna handle this, love?” 

“He’s going to be a different man, darling. You have to be prepared for that. There may be parts of him he can never reclaim, that are just…gone. His innocence, his wonder at the world, at us…” Harry’s voice choked.

“It makes me sick, physically sick, to think that we might never…” Merlin shook his head. To anyone else, this would be the crassest possible conversation, and he didn’t mean it to be. 

“Make love again.” Harry finished it for him, spared him having to say the words, or find the words. “It’s so much a part of who we are, each of us to the other. It’s how we show our love and acceptance.”

Merlin nodded, his head suddenly heavy, coming to rest on the cheap plastic headrest of the uncomfortable chair. Harry, on his unencumbered side, nuzzled at the side of his face. “We’ll find a way, that’s what we’ll do. No matter how long it takes. That’s what love is.” Possibility and patience. Infinite and indefatigable. 

“I just want him to live,” Merlin ground out, jaw clenched against tears of his own he refused to shed. 

“We can accomplish anything if we’re just given the opportunity.” If they’re given their beautiful boy back, then they will find some way to make everything to work. To rebuild his shattered body, his broken heart. Harry put his arm around Merlin’s shoulders, the angle awkward because of Michelle against his side, but he managed. 

**

They all lost track of time save for Iain, who tracked it in trips to the canteen and gentle persuasion to eat and drink. A rolling retinue of nurses came out every couple of hours to tell them that Eggsy was strong, or that Eggsy’s vitals were improving. One time, the second time, the nurse came out she was ashen and she could say nothing but “We got him back.” 

An exhausted surgeon came out in blood spattered scrubs at the end, and she sat heavily across from them in the small waiting room. “He pulled through. We had to resect a section of his bowels, remove his left kidney, right testicle, and spleen. He’s on the strongest antibiotics we have in our arsenal to prevent sepsis.” 

“Is he out of the woods, or is this a ‘the next 24 hours will tell’ situation?” Merlin was the only one of them who seemed able to talk. 

“The next 24 hours will tell, I’m afraid.” The doctor shook her head. “At the least, we’ll know by then if he’s gone septic. That’s absolutely the biggest concern right now.” It could and did rob otherwise strong patients of their lives on a regular basis. “You can see him, just be aware he’s in a medically-induced coma and on a ventilator. I understand you three are his next of kin.” Her nod encompassed Harry, Merlin and Michelle. They all three nodded, numb with relief and half-frozen with fear. 

“We need to sit with him until he awakens,” Harry said. “I…know from personal experience that it matters. That he can hear, he knows we’ll be there.” It would be a ridiculous statement anywhere else, but this was a Kingsman hospital and everyone knew what had happened to Arthur. 

“You three have unlimited access unless a medical professional asks you to leave for a procedure. The other two will have to take turns, and are limited to thirty minute visits during visiting hours.” 

Roxy nodded, defeated, and sat down again to wait her turn. Iain would be returning on the jet to serve as pro-tempore lead until Arthur and Merlin were available again. “I’ll go see him, then head back with Percival. We can’t have another agent sitting in a hospital, there’s work to be done.” And Lancelot would deal with the trauma her own way, by working. 

Harry, Merlin and Michelle followed a nurse back to the ICU, into a large private room. It had to be big; there was so much equipment surrounding Eggsy’s small, naked body on the bed. He was covered in two blankets, and they’d brought in a third chair. Michelle stroked his hair back from his forehead and kissed him there, her tears falling onto his skin. She swiped them away with her thumb, murmured something into her son’s ear, then moved away for his lovers. 

“Hello, darling,” Harry whispered, leaning in to take one of his hands and kiss the knuckles. “We’re here. We’re all here, and we’re going to be here waiting for you.” 

“Couldn’t drag us away for anything,” Merlin continued, taking his other hand and lacing their fingers together. “Right now, you rest. Rest and heal. We love you so much.”

“We do, you know. Love you. Ridiculously so.” Harry nuzzled at Eggsy’s cheek above the ventilator before looking at his body under the blankets. He looked so, so broken it was almost enough to make them all despair. 

“You looked as bad. Worse.” Merlin reminded him about having a giant hole in his head. “And now look at you.” 

Michelle tucked the blankets in around his feet and then took a chair. She may be his mum, but these two men obviously were his family now. Looking back, she regretted not being there for him. But now she could be here, and let them do what they needed to do. 

**

Roxy saw Eggsy and cried softly, kissing him on the face and cussing at him to get better for fuck’s sake. Who else was going to fire guns off in her ear? It was her job as best friend to berate him into health, apparently. When her visit was over, she left with Iain to return to UK HQ. 

The twenty-four hours passed like a dream. Halfway through, the doctors deemed it safe to take out the intubation, and surely enough Eggsy managed to breathe on his own even though he didn’t wake up. By the time they’d hit hour twenty-two, all three were feeling like they had this all wrapped up. Eggsy was going to be just fine. 

That’s when his fever spiked to 40.6 C. The dreaded septic infection had taken hold. All they could do was watch helplessly as Eggsy was rushed out of the room and back into surgery to find the source. It was a shorter procedure, only four hours, but by the time they got him back to the room his temp was already falling back into less terrifying territory. 

The clock reset, another twenty-four hours watching the sepsis run its course, seeing if they’d found all of it and freed Eggsy of its putrefaction. Michelle took the chair that converted to a bed and slept for large chunks of time, too stressed and too miserable to just sit there and watch her son’s frail body in the bed. Harry and Merlin couldn’t sleep, they just kept up their sentinel watch on either side of Eggsy’s bed. There were the briefest possible trips to the restroom, to force down sandwiches and coffee. But other than those life-sustaining measures they didn’t move. 

By the time the 48th hour since the first surgery had come and gone, Eggsy’s temperature was only slightly elevated, and the doctors were calling it a victory. He would survive. How well he would function remained to be seen. 

After another day they let him come out of his induced coma. 

**

Merlin and Harry were at either side of Eggsy, and Michelle next to Harry, when the younger man fluttered his long lashes and opened his bruised blue eyes. The doctors held out hope he wouldn’t fully remember what had happened to him. The tears that fell immediately put that hope to lie. 

“Get…no. No. Can’t…be yours…anymore. Go away!” Crushing defeat was all Eggsy could feel. He couldn’t even feel human. “’M all wrong, go…just leave me!” 

Harry and Merlin looked like they’d been slapped. Harry leaned in even closer, “Eggsy, darling, no…no we’re right here, and we will never leave you.” Merlin nodded in agreement, took Eggsy’s hand.

Eggsy yanked it right back, shuddering, crying. “No! I’m not what…you…wanted. Just go!” He was working himself up and the nurses urged Harry and Merlin to leave. Eggsy’s vitals were dangerously unstable so they had no choice, standing stunned across the hall from his room while Michelle took over comforting their lover.

“He remembers, then.” Merlin had his arms clasped tightly in front of him.

“He remembers. And he thinks we won’t want him anymore. That he doesn’t deserve us.” Harry ran a hand through his hair. “I seem to remember feeling that way once or twice.”

“What the fuck do we do? How do we calm him down?” Merlin growled, angry not with Eggsy but with those fucking barbarians and their rake handles and rubber hoses. 

“First we have to let him get his pain managed. He’ll be calmer. Let Michelle talk to him, care for him. Just for a few hours. Then we go back in.” Harry leaned heavily against the wall. “We need a shower, and fresh clothes, and maybe a short nap.”

“You’re right about all of it, love, but…”

“Leaving him at all is torture.” Harry got it, undoubtedly.

“Brutal,” Merlin agreed. He told the nurses they were going to go get cleaned up and then come back to see if Eggsy was calmer. 

US HQ had a room set aside for them, and their luggage had been delivered there. The shower was fast and business-like, and they fell asleep naked on the small bed, curled tight around each other for comfort. 

Barely three hours later they were back, pacing out in the hall in front of the door like lost puppies waiting for Michelle to come out and tell them it was okay to go inside. She came out looking like she’d been to the wars, hair mussed and even more exhausted than before. 

“He’s got it in his thick head that he don’t deserve you anymore. That he’s broken and you should have better.” She shook her head—as if there was any such thing as ‘better than’ her beautiful son. 

“Do you think he’ll let us go in and talk him out of it?” Harry asked. 

“We can’t let him think anything of the sort,” Merlin added.

“I think you should be able to, but the poor love can’t stop his crying for long. And he ain’t making a whole lot of sense, neither.” She yawned so hard her jaw cracked. “I’m gonna go to my room and have a bit of a kip. I’ll be back soon. Good luck, lads.” 

After she’d headed off down the hall to quarters, Harry looked at Merlin incredulously. “Would you have ever thought, in a million years…”

“Nope, not at all. But I’ll take it.” Michelle’s acceptance was a gift that made all their lives so much easier. 

Once inside the room they approached Eggsy slowly, hearts breaking at the way he curled in on himself, shuddering in ways that must be agonising. “Darling,” Harry whispered, wanting to cry himself. “We want to talk to you. We need to talk to you.”

“Don’t matter. Nothin’ matters. It’s over. Ain’t nobody ever gonna want me after this.” If anything, it was worse now that the doctors had visited and told him everything. “I ain’t even a proper man no more, and they don’t know if…I’ll heal up right…” 

“Kindly do not group your lovers in with ‘anyone.’” Merlin creased his brow. “We are not ‘anyone.’ We love you without reservation or condition, no matter what may come.” 

“You are our bright star, sweet one,” Harry said, fingers itching to touch. “Whatever those monsters did to your body, you’re ours. You’re our beautiful man.” 

“I know you love me, but I’m all fucked up. You don’t need that. Kingsman don’t need that.” Eggsy scrubbed angrily at his face before dropping his hand in exhaustion. “They saw…they saw on my hips, the bruises from…us. And then I was just their little faggot. Hurt so bad. So much.” His voice was thick with tears.

Merlin’s stomach dropped so fast he almost went down with it. “Oh god. Oh god, Eggsy, I’m so sorry. So sorry. I should never leave marks on you.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Harry interjected. “This is circling the drain alarmingly quickly. Merlin, this is not your fault. Eggsy, you are so far from useless I can’t even articulate it. Let’s stop dancing around it. Eggsy, you’re scared that you’re not fuckable anymore.”

There was a long pause, and then Eggsy nodded miserably. 

“Say that technically you’re right. Say that your body never can handle sex again, as unlikely as that is. You think that makes us some kind of holy martyrs for still loving you?”

“I think you’d be crazy to keep me round.” Eggsy could do blunt, too. 

“Bullshit.” Merlin joined the conversation, finally. “You will never be loved less than you were the last night we made love. We aren’t in love with your body.”

“And you can stop obsessing over your parts not working. You just need to heal, and yes, it may be a long time, but you. Will. Heal.” Harry moved slowly to take Eggsy’s hand, and Eggsy allowed it. “Do you understand?”

Eggsy nodded slowly. “I think you’re both barmy.” And he was wrung out, and using his other hand to make friends with the morphine button. Maybe things would be better without quite so much pain. 

“Maybe, but do you love us?” Merlin leaned over him to kiss his cheek gently. 

“God, I love you more than life.” And having come so close to losing it, Eggsy could say that definitively. 

“Then we’ll be just fine. No matter what.” Harry kissed his other cheek, as Eggsy let the drugs wash over him and drag him under. 

**

Two weeks later, Eggsy had been medevaced back to UK HQ, and he was in the same extended recovery suite that Harry had occupied. He’d lost weight and muscle mass he couldn’t afford to lose thanks to two weeks of a liquid diet, but he was slowly rebounding. Much to Harry and Merlin’s surprise, Eggsy had asked for and accepted psychiatric help. 

His therapist was a bright young woman Kingsman had recruited out of Cambridge who was thrilled to have a patient who for once wanted to be treated. Dr. Patel had a gentle, no-nonsense approach to dealing with Eggsy that the young man responded to, and she didn’t judge him for his personal relationships, or try to play down their meaning to her patient. 

When he wasn’t being visited or treated, Eggsy typically curled on his side and stared out into nothing. The telly held no interest, nor did any of the books and magazines that had been showered upon him. Dr. Patel said he was depressed, so he took anti-depressants. They were supposed to help the PTSD, too, but apparently they took at least three weeks to build up in the bloodstream and reach effective levels. That meant three weeks or more of soul-crushing despair. 

To make things worse, Eggsy felt so guilty. He did the exercises the doctors told him to do, walked obediently around the floor of the hospital, and took all his meds. But he wasn’t pushing. He wasn’t being as brave or as strong or as aggressive as Harry had been, and Harry had been hurt much worse. 

Doctor Patel tried to make him see that some injuries are much deeper than skin and bone, but all Eggsy could see was himself, failing the men he loved. The only time he genuinely lit up was when Michelle brought Daisy to visit. He would sit at the table and colour with her for as long as she wanted, churning out princesses and fairies and flowers. The visits never lasted long enough, it seemed, but to Eggsy Daisy was the one person he wasn’t disappointing with his slow recovery. 

Harry and Merlin knew something was wrong, but when they gently questioned him he gave them the answers they wanted to hear. He reassured them that when the anti-depressants kicked in, he’d be all better. 

What wasn’t said, what wasn’t acknowledged, was that he could have gone home days ago, but he was on a psychiatric hold. Harry and Merlin spent as much of their days and nights with him as possible, still, their quiet concern just as evident. They told him how much they were looking forward to having him home, how much they missed him. 

When they curled into bed with him, shoes toed off, Eggsy gripped onto them so tightly it nearly left a bruise. They may have held him just as hard. Eggsy longed to go home to them with every fibre of his being, but he was so ashamed, intimately ashamed, of his body that he wanted to hide forever, all at the same time. 

What surprised him most, perhaps, was the day he woke up and did, actually, feel just that little bit lighter. Just that little bit better. That day he found himself hoping for something—wishing with all his heart that Harry or Merlin or both would just hurry up and come to him already. 

**

Eggsy waited a long time that day, but in the slanting afternoon light Harry finally came, burdened with a hamper that held things that smelled delicious and a bouquet of roses. He held them out to Eggsy with an almost-shy flourish. “You look better today, darling.” 

“Feeling better, Harry.” Eggsy smiled, all the way to his eyes, and took the flowers in his arms. “What’s all this, then?”

“This is me giving you something you are very long overdue: a little bit of old-fashioned romance.” Harry leaned in to kiss Eggsy chastely on the lips, then went to the table, clearing away Daisy’s colouring books and crayons and opening the hamper. In moments, he’d laid a lovely table setting for two, complete with candles. 

“You know you don’t got to bother with that, right? For one thing, I’m a bloke, and for another, you’ve already wooed me. I’m proper wooed.” It didn’t stop Eggsy’s smile from turning into a grin.

“Nevertheless.” Harry came over, took the flowers and put them in the vase he’d brought with him. It made a very pretty picture, and Eggsy couldn’t help but be impressed. His lover came over and held out a hand for him, and he slid out of bed in his pyjama bottoms, tee shirt and robe, and felt, as usual, like a child next to Harry’s tall, slim figure. The fluffy slipper socks didn’t help. “You’re going to indulge me tonight,” Harry said with confidence. 

“I always indulge you, and you know it.” Spectacularly indulged even, on more than one occasion.

“I do know it. But I want to spend a whole night watching how the candles light your face, hearing your voice speak about everything and nothing in particular. I want to hold you in my arms and dance with you. I want to kiss you, soft and deep, and I want to run my fingertips over the sweep of your cheekbones and the hollow of your throat.” Harry caught his eyes at the beginning, and didn’t let them go.

Even when they brimmed with tears, even when his own did much the same. 

Eggsy could think of no other response than to sway into Harry’s arms, wrapping himself tight around the man and not letting go. What did you say to that? “I love you, too,” was all that came to mind. From the way Harry took that deep breath in the circle of his arms and kissed the side of his neck, Eggsy figured it was the right thing to say. 

“Come on, let’s get you fed. I cleared all of this through your doctors, so you can just enjoy.” The first course was Greek lemon-chicken soup with orzo, and it was so delicious and different than the weeks and weeks of bland hospital food that Eggsy found himself eating every drop.

Harry asked him about his day, and told him about a few of the more colourful moments around the shop the past week or so, including the almost Keystone Cops nature of the bungled assignment that had both Merlin and Charlie working overtime. It was so easy, sitting with Harry and gossiping about Percival and Charlie, and the new bloke Roxy was dating. It made Eggsy feel like part of the world again. 

When it was time for dessert, Eggsy’s eyes went wide when Harry pulled out a cold container filled with his very own famous chocolate mousse. “Harry, you made it for me? I was starting to think it was some kinda myth.” 

“Oh, I made it for you.” Harry pulled out a spoon and fed the younger man the first bite, studying his face, watching the pure pleasure of it spill across those well-studied, well-loved features. 

“Jesus Christ, Harry, this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.” Eggsy took the proffered container and tried to eat it slowly so it didn’t come right back up. Harry had a few bites of his own, but watching his lover was so much more delicious. 

“You are so beautiful,” Harry murmured, shaking his head as Eggsy managed to get every last spoonful out of the bowl. “And I sincerely hope these smiles mean that we’ll have you home with us soon.” 

“I want to come home, Harry. I’ve always wanted to come home. I just...I...didn’t know what to do with myself like I am now, I guess.” 

“Tonight, we’re not going to worry about that. Tonight, we are going to dance, and then we are going to kiss, and then you are going to fall asleep in my arms.” Harry pronounced it so, and rumour had it he was in charge. He produced his phone and a very small Bluetooth speaker, and soon there was something smoky and sultry filling the room. 

Eggsy took his lover’s hand when it was offered to him, feeling ridiculous in his robe and jammies for about five seconds before Harry pulled him into his arms. Let it be said that Harry Hart was a proper all-around gentleman, right down to the slow-dancing. With one hand around his waist and splayed against his lower back drawing him near and the other clasping his own hand firmly, Eggsy melted into the dance. 

“My Fair Lady,” he murmured against Harry’s neck.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,” Harry replied. “But you are no Eliza. You are my beloved.” 

“How can you just say things like that, and have them out soundin’ so perfect?” 

“I just say what’s in my heart. And I’m glad when you and Merlin like to hear it.” Harry gathered Eggsy just a little closer as they swayed to the music. 

“Hey…” Eggsy pulled his head back and freed his hands to cup either side of Harry’s face. “Sorry, but I can’t wait anymore.” He pulled Harry down into a sweet, gentle kiss that tasted as perfect on his tongue as the mousse had. 

“Nor should you,” Harry murmured against his lips, leading them to the bed. He managed to take off his jacket, loosen his tie and toe off his oxfords without breaking away from Eggsy’s determined mouth. They crawled into bed, and Eggsy settled right into the crook of Harry’s arm like he always had, like he belonged there. 

The kisses never grew rough or insistent. They parted for breath, to lick their lips, to nuzzle at each other’s mouths, to shift in each other’s grips. It was very like the dancing, truth be told, the kisses open-mouthed and deep but never pushing to be more than just what they were. 

The younger man felt Harry get hard, but he didn’t let that bother him since it obviously wasn’t worrying the other man in the slightest. What bothered Eggsy was that the slow curl of arousal in his belly wasn’t catching hold. “Stop thinking,” Harry whispered. “Just feel my mouth, hm.” 

It was good advice and Eggsy took it. The moment he did, truly, give himself to their kissing, he found himself sliding a leg over Harry’s hip in a gesture so familiar he only half-realised he was doing it. It brought Harry’s erection alongside his cock, and he gasped when the arousal not only caught hold but sparked into fire. 

Harry felt it immediately, and pulled back with a smile that lit Eggsy up all the way through. “There’s our beautiful boy,” he whispered, rolling his hips slowly, experimentally. 

“I…oh God, Harry…” It was like taking a long drink of water after crawling through the desert. He wasn’t necessarily ready to do anything about the arousal other than kiss and mould himself to his lover’s body, but Harry wasn’t the pushy type. 

“Only what you want, and no more,” Harry murmured, stroking his hair back and kissing along the line of his jaw slowly. “Do you feel good?”

“I feel so good,” came the immediate response. They kissed until Eggsy grew heavy in his arms, eyelids drooping. When he fell asleep in Harry’s arms, he felt safe for the first time since he jumped out of the plane in America.

**

Merlin came in late in the night, leaving his shoes by the door so he didn’t wake Eggsy. He tiptoed over and Harry woke at once, sleepily offering him a kiss that he took. Oh, Harry’s mouth was tender and kiss-swollen, which was lovely. He’d known about Harry’s plans, and from the remains of dinner strewn about to the tableau in front of him, it seemed to have worked beautifully. 

“I got him hard,” Harry mouthed at Merlin as Merlin slid into bed on Eggsy’s other side. 

“You needn’t be so insufferably proud,” Merlin said, teasing with a smile. 

“He’ll come home to us, love.”

“I always knew he would.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the comments and kudos. I think we have just a couple more chapters left in this installment, but there will be more to come. <3 you all, and sorry about the misery and whump.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The road to recovery is slow, patient, and inevitable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It had to end somewhere :) But never fear, there is more to come, including:
> 
> "What a Killer Queen You Are"--Harry and Merlin get together. With bombs. And fisticuffs. 
> 
> The further life adventures of our OT3.
> 
> Sad things.

The nights were the hardest. There was no magical balm—even sleeping in his own bed with his own lovers didn’t drive Eggsy’s nightmares away. Merlin and Harry woke during the long nights every time Eggsy, invariably between them now, sheltered and safe, thrashed or moaned in his sleep. They murmured and stroked his forehead and his sweaty hair; they kissed him gently; they grounded him again in the here and now, where he was safe. 

Every morning, Eggsy felt guilty for keeping them up, and they shushed him every time. “You’re home, darling,” Harry would say. “What’s a little sleep compared to that?” Merlin would finish. They doted on him otherwise, buying him little luxuries like silk pyjama bottoms that felt like heaven on still-sore flesh and the freshest, most succulent strawberries from the market. They were spoiling him, and he said so. They didn’t stop.

One thing they never did, no matter that they were lying every night with their Eggsy, was anything remotely sexual. Eggsy got it, he did. He wasn’t ready, and they were respecting that. But he knew those two men better than anyone else in the world, and he knew they had to be going mad. He wondered if they were having quick one-offs at HQ during the day, which got him picturing Harry splayed out over Arthur’s desk with Merlin fucking the daylights out of him. At least the _idea_ of sex wasn’t appalling like it once was, because the image caused him to shift in his seat and put down his book. Suddenly, he knew what he had to do.

**

That night, after dinner was eaten and dishes were done and pointless telly was watched, the three of them moved upstairs. Eggsy changed his clothes in the bathroom, still horribly, uncharacteristically body-shy in the wake of his injuries. By the time he got out, Harry and Merlin were already naked and under the covers, where there was a cosy space just waiting for Eggsy’s small body. 

He shook his head firmly and went over to Harry’s side of the bed, nudging at him to get in the middle. “Shove over, would ya?” Harry did, right into Merlin’s arms, and there was a bitten-back moan from both of them at the skin-to-skin contact. Just as Eggsy suspected. He crawled in next to Harry and pillowed his head on his folded elbow to look at them. “Right, so…you two should fuck.”

“What? No, we’re fine. It would be horribly rude to do it in front of you, with all you’re…going through.” Poor Merlin, still not exactly an emotional mastermind, but then you can’t be a genius at everything, can you?

“The last thing we want is for you to feel uncomfortable, or like we’re pushing ourselves on you,” Harry added, curling in closer to Merlin’s heat despite himself. Merlin slid a hand from Harry’s hip up and over his chest as if he couldn’t help touching. 

“You won’t be. I want you to, I want to see, I want to watch. I want to know that my men are proper satisfied, don’t I?” Eggsy reached out and touched Harry’s face, then Merlin’s. 

“Proper satisfaction requires three, but…I admit I’m tempted.” Merlin met Eggsy’s eyes and studied them, and, finding the younger man quite resolute, he bent to bite gently but firmly at the join of Harry’s neck and shoulder. It had its usual effect, making Harry’s hips buck up and forcing a choked-off moan through his lips. Good, so Merlin was on board.

Eggsy tugged at the covers and bared both of them, finding Harry hard already but trying desperately to deny it. “Harry, for fuck’s sake. You’re gagging for it. Let Merlin fuck you, yeah? Let him do it up right.”

Finally, Harry nodded his head and turned to Merlin behind him for a sloppy, hungry kiss. Merlin cupped Harry’s jaw, then moved his hand down to curl lightly around Harry’s throat for a semblance of control. That was how Harry found himself on his back with Merlin between his thighs, biting lightly and suckling hard at each nipple in turn, knowing exactly what that did to his Harry. Eggsy would wager that Harry was already open, hole spasming with the need to be filled. 

Apparently Merlin was not going to wager, he was going to see for himself. He held Harry’s legs open until he was between the other man’s thighs, tongue finding the pulsing flesh and pushing inside. Ohh, Eggsy remembered how good Merlin’s tongue was, and he gasped. They both looked over at him, momentarily concerned, but Eggsy just shook his head. “Fuck, don’t stop. That’s proper gorgeous.”

Eggsy felt his own pucker twitch, igniting an ache in him that he just couldn’t process, not yet. There was no denying that he was hard, though, his pyjamas tenting up obscenely. “You let him right in, Harry…yeah, that’s it.” 

“God, love to hear your voice,” Harry ground out, grabbing at Merlin’s shoulders and digging in as he pushed down on that invading, glorious tongue. Merlin groaned in agreement, using his thumbs to open up Harry even more, then pressing two spit-slick fingers inside, curling them just right to find Harry’s prostate. 

“Holy fuck,” Eggsy breathed. He’d seen this exact thing so many times, and yet it never stopped being gorgeous and incredibly arousing. Maybe that was what love was—the ability to find wonder in the small things even when they’ve become thoroughly familiar. 

“Nnn…come here,” Harry managed to murmur, holding out a hand for Eggsy. “Just want to touch you.” 

Eggsy sidled over, trusting they weren’t going to do anything overwhelming, and reached out to meet Harry’s hand with his, twining the fingers together. Merlin rose up between Harry’s thighs and leaned over to offer a kiss, which Eggsy took with something like his old abandon. _Fuck but Harry always tastes so good._

Merlin was a master at multitasking, and while he was kissing Eggsy he slicked up his cock and pushed slowly but inexorably inside. Harry cried out with the sweet relief of it, which told Eggsy that they hadn’t in fact been screwing around at the office. _Silly buggers shouldn’t be waiting around for me._ Merlin broke the kiss to look down at Harry’s blissful face. He smiled and found a rhythm, deep and slow. It might not stay that way, but no one wanted to rush.

Eggsy pressed himself along Harry’s side, kissing the side of his neck and his jaw and his mouth, swallowing the cries that fell from his lips as Merlin’s big cock filled him over and over. His hand slid slowly down Harry’s chest, tweaking pink nipples then wrapping slowly, almost tentatively around his straining prick. Harry gasped and looked at Eggsy with blown pupils, only relaxing into the pleasure when he saw a shy, small smile and felt Eggsy snuggle in closer and press his own erection against Harry’s hip. 

It only took a few minutes for Harry to succumb, hips arching off the bed as he spurted over Eggsy’s sweetly demanding fist. Merlin growled at the sight and leaned forward, fucking Harry harder for a few deep, hard thrusts before filling up his lover with a gut-wrenching jolt of sheer ecstasy. 

“Fuck…” Eggsy smiled muzzily and wiped his hand on the sheets, ignoring Harry’s tiny, mostly-obligatory noise of disapproval. 

“Are you all right, love?” Merlin was still panting, but both men were focused on Eggsy. 

“Yeah…Yeah, I’m good. I love you both so much.” So much that not even his stupid, godforsaken PTSD could keep him away from their arms. 

“I love you, too,” Harry murmured, followed closely on by Merlin. “Now…I think we must hold you.” He looked up at Merlin, who smiled and gently pulled out, crawling over Eggsy to his other side. 

Once he was ensconced in their arms, Eggsy shifted uncomfortably, bothered by his erection for the first time since he started getting them again. Bothered as in—would possibly, maybe like something to be done about it. 

Harry stroked a hand absently over Eggsy’s chest and propped himself up on his elbow to look at him. “If we go very slowly, may we touch you?” 

Eggsy looked from one of them to the other and took a deep breath. “Can’t promise it won’t go tits-up.” _I can’t believe I’m actually doing this. I can’t believe I’m finally doing this._

Merlin’s strong hand slid down under the waistband of the younger man’s pyjamas, just teasing at the head of his cock. “You need us to stop, say the word. That’s all you have to do. Lie here, let us touch, and tell us to stop if you need it.” 

“Of course ‘harder, god, fuck, yes’ all work, too,” Harry pointed out, nuzzling at Eggsy’s throat. 

“Duly…mmm. Duly noted.” Merlin’s fingers were maddening, and he found himself lifting his hips to let them work his pyjamas down past his ass. His own erection looked somehow alien to him, angry red and bobbing against his too-flat belly. “Is…is it okay?” It still threw him off horribly that he was so uneven now, and everyone knew symmetry was the basis of beauty. 

“What? Okay?” Harry stroked the backs of his fingers up the length, making Eggsy hiss. “You have a gorgeous cock, and we’ve missed it very much.” 

“It’s perfect, in fact,” Merlin wrapped his fingers gently but firmly around the base, then stroked up to the tip and back down. “Love the way it fits just right into my hand.” 

Harry retrieved the lube and let some drizzle down onto the aching flesh, smoothing Merlin’s way and making the experience downright decadent. Eggsy groaned and thrust up his hips again before just letting his head fall to the bed. “There now, isn’t that better?” Harry whispered, just before sucking on one of Eggsy’s nipples.

“Better…oh god, yeah. Better.” Merlin grinned ferally and found a slow rhythm. Both men were watching Eggsy’s face, making damned sure that they could only see pleasure there. 

No worries on that count, since Eggsy was caught between them thoroughly, one hand on the back of Harry’s neck as he suckled and another around Merlin’s, like if he pulled tightly enough he could just merge them all into one. “B…both of your…your hands…please…” 

Each of his lovers hand hands that he fetishised, and this kind of lavishing of pleasure was one of his guilty little fantasies. Just lying there, taking it, sucking it all in and soaking in the tight pressure and the slick glide of flesh on flesh. Merlin and Harry knit their hands together and took turns kissing Eggsy breathless and quickly finding the same rhythm. 

It was a matter of minutes before Eggsy’s hips started riding up anxiously at each stroke, and he cried out into their mouths as they wrung him dry, milking his prick until he’d thoroughly turned himself inside out for them. Eggsy’s vision went grey around the edges—it had been so miserably long, and he’d been so afraid he’d lost this forever. 

They licked their fingers clean and looked down at Eggsy, noticing the tears and wiping them away. “All good, beautiful?” Merlin asked, his own voice choking up. They did hate to see him cry. 

“Yeah…yeah, s’perfect, innit?” he murmured thickly. “S’gonna be all right.”

“Never doubted it,” Harry whispered, nuzzling at his damp cheek. 

“You’re ours, and we’re yours, and nothing can ever come between that.” Merlin kissed his other cheek. 

“Too bloody right.” The tears were fading even as Eggsy kicked off his pyjamas the rest of the way and turned to lay across Merlin’s chest, Harry curled up close behind him. 

The End. For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason I've been away from fandom for awhile is that I've been working on my original fiction. If you like my fanfic, you're pretty much guaranteed to like In the Twist. Check out the first two chapters on my blog: https://lastockman.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/in-the-twist-chapters-1-2/.

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably be a slowly but consistently updated story. I have seen this film twice in theatres because I cannot get enough of these three men. Naturally that means they must all be together, even though this is not, I repeat not, an easy fix-it for Harry, or for the men who love him. Title from Passenger's 'Things That Stop You Dreaming'.


End file.
